Recent News Headlines - Editorial Thoughts
AAS Insight 88 - Nokia 5730, Ovi Developer Day, Vodafone 360
In All About Symbian Insight 88 (AAS Podcast 150), Rafe and Steve talk about the release dates for some upcoming devices and preview the Nokia 5730. Rafe reports back from the Ovi Developer Day and Steve shares news of the latest Nokia 5800 firmware and upcoming firmware for the N86. There's also discussion about the Ovi Store and Vodafone 360. You can listen to AAS Insight 88 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Can you innovate more services with less resources?
As the recession continues to bite, will there be any innovation in the mobile market in the near future? I don't just mean at the top level, where smartphone users (no matter the OS flavour) will try out every single application they can, but in the marketplace where hundreds of thousands of phones are bought every day. How will new services prosper in the modern environment? Read on for my thoughts.
Review: Samsung i8910 HD (Omnia HD)
It has been a long, long, rocky path, but the Samsung i8910 HD is finally in mass markets - well, in some countries and for some networks, at least. And armed with II1 firmware, it's high time for me to wrap up this top-end Symbian flagship. Just how good is it and what are its weakpoints? Is it more of a media tablet than a full-on smartphone? Find out in our review (Rafe contributed text - it's a joint effort! And thanks to Stuart Clark as well for helpful feedback)
Rafe goes hands-on with the Nokia N97 mini and X6
Courtesy of camcorder entrepreneur Ewan Macleod, we have our very own Rafe Blandford going over the Nokia N97 mini and X6 in detail in a (thankfully) quiet room at Nokia World 2009. And, in similar vein, though powered by Maemo 5, we have Rafe giving the Nokia N900 exactly the same detailed treatment. Enjoy.
Where Next for Comes With Music?
It's coming close to the one year anniversary of Nokia's all you can eat music service, “Comes With Music”, and that birthday is pretty important to those who picked up the first wave of devices from The Carphone Warehouse. Because the 'all you can download' part was only ever going to last a year... so the flow of bits and musical bytes is about to run out for the early adopters. Or is it? Read on for my thoughts.
Three Apps on my Smartphone, and I'm still rolling along...
Are bulging App Stores overrated? Whichever Symbian-powered phone you own (or even if you have an iPhone, Blackberry, etc), could you manage with only three third party (i.e. add-on) applications? And if so, which ones would they be? Steve Litchfield conducts a spot survey and ponders a few personal theories...
Which three heavyweights will the smartphone market support?
While watching an interview recorded at the Gnomedex conference over the summer, I was struck with a statement from Micah Baldwin. In talking about the startup environment online with Jolie O'Dell, and specifically social networks, he said that any market can comfortably take three major players in the space. And given the crowded nature of the Smartphone OS market, do we have three clear heavyweights?
Head to head: The Nokia N97 vs HTC Hero
If you're an AAS regular, you'll know that I love doing direct, informed comparisons between different cutting edge smartphones. Having been using the HTC Hero and Nokia N97 side by side for the last week, here's my head to head between Nokia and HTC's flagships. The result is somewhat predictable, but I do note that both devices are currently flawed and awaiting major software updates. The Hero's is apparently imminent, the N97's is about 3 weeks away. Still, hopefully it's an interesting comparison and worthy of comment.
Insight 87: Nokia World Services and SDKs
In show 87 in our Insight podcast series, the AAS team discuss the Ovi SDK and Ovi Maps API, plus we talk about Ovi Maps 3.3.54, Nokia Messaging (Social/Instant), Ovi Suite 2.0, N97 software version 2.0, updates for other devices (including the 5800), plus we answer a reader question about the Nokia N97 mini.
Books? What we need is Comes with Books
Long term readers of All About Symbian will know that I'm a sucker for eBooks on my mobile phone, and Steve was quick to point out that a number of titles had popped up as standalone eBooks in the Ovi store from OffScreen Technologies (a veritable factory of little utilities in the store) and would I like to take a look at them and see if this is the right way forward? Read on...
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