Never more than in the last year or so, smartphone enthusiasts have been decrying Symbian and advocating switching to an Android smartphone or Apple iPhone. "Enough is enough" they cry, "I'll be able to do so much more if I switch!". Errr... no. Not really. Having used many Android phones and having been using the iPhone and other iOS devices over the last two years, I've come to the conclusion that the grass really isn't greener on the other side of the fence - it's just a different colour altogether.
Sometimes journalists put two and 'x' together to make four, and when they're right, careers are made. This weekend, TechCrunch have tried to make a similar jump and announced that they reckon that "Facebook is Secretly Building A Phone," a claim that Facebook have denied (reported at Mashable and others). With a broader stroke of a brush, I hope the Symbian Foundation is paying attention, because Symbian OS in a short production run of handsets would have made a lot of sense.
Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President in charge of Mobile Solutions (Symbian and MeeGo devices) and a member of the Nokia Group Executive Board, has resigned. He will work out his six month notice period, will continue in his current tasks for the time being and will be attending Nokia World. Coming just days after the appointment of Stephen Elop as the new CEO of Nokia, it seems very likely that Vanjoki was one of the internal candidates passed over for the job, consequently he has decided to move on.
Nokia's Board of Directors has appointed Stephen Elop, currently head of Microsoft's Business division, to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as CEO of Nokia as of September 21st. As a Canadian, he becomes the first non-Finn to lead the company, reflecting Nokia's increasingly global management and work force. The market is responding positively to the news, with Nokia shares up 5% in early trading.
One of the things that first aiders are taught is triage – the initial assessment of patients to work out which ones have a genuine problem and need to be looked at as soon as possible; and which ones are shouting loudly because they’ve broken a nail. In the online noise of social media and blogging, that triage skill is just as vital, because the companies making the loudest noises aren’t always telling the whole story.
In All About Symbian Insight 134, we start with news of new, community created Samsung i8910 firmware, which leads to a discussion of Samsung's mobile platform choices. Rafe discusses the Ovi Files closure and talks about how the thinking behind Nokia's Ovi service strategy has evolved. David shares his PixelPipe Send and Share experiences, before bringing news of UK operator Orange's HD Voice service. Ewan talks about Swype, an alternative text input entry system, which is now available in beta. Finally, Steve gives his first opinion on the Nokia E5.
Nokia's mission for the forward-facing, messaging-centric QWERTY market (think Blackberry)? Take the best selling E71/E63/E72 concept, interpret it in 2010 design language, beef up the internals and try to sell it for as low a price as possible while making as few compromises as possible. The result of that tricky challenge is the E5, announced way back in April but, surprisingly, not available until now. Here's my full Nokia E5 review - grab a hot drink and settle down for a (hopefully) good read!
Steve has already taken an in-depth look at Polar Bit / Sports Tracker combination (see his review here), but now I’ve got my hands on the Bluetooth heart rate monitor so it can talk to my X6, it’s time for my opinions. But if you want the short answer, the Sports Tracker eco-system is growing and I’m loving every step they’ve taken. Read on...
To kick-off our coverage of Nokia's new budget QWERTY slate smartphone, the Nokia E5-00, we have our usual gallery, with commentary, showing off some of the key hardware features. In summary? The E5 has rock solid build quality, good design and a decent hardware specification, but there's are some budget-linked constraints to note. All-in-all though, it is an attractive entry into the mid tier smartphone market.
Having been a smartphone owner for longer than most, I suspect, as an All About Symbian reader, you'll be very used to the daily routines of charging and power management. Even with some of Nokia's S60 devices (think 6650, E71, E52, E55, E72) running happily for several days at a time on a charge, the reality is that (especially when talking about large screened touch-driven devices) most of us need to charge every night. Or suffer the consequences. Acceptable for us, this requirement is something of a deal breaker for many 'normobs', those for whom mobile technology is merely a tool and not something they're prepared to nurse maid through the week....
And so we come to what we suspect will be the most contentious piece in Ewan's quest in comparing a £100 Android smartphone (the ZTE Racer) with an £80 Symbian smartphone (the Nokia 5230). Third party applications and the final decision, rounding up conclusions from the previous comparison parts. Which will triumph? Read on for the final instalment, plus links to the other parts.
Heading out into the wilds of Devon a week ago, for my annual vacation, I wanted to try the smartphone equivalent of going 'commando' - travelling light, one device only, one SIM only, one chance to get it right for all my phone, communication and entertainment needs. No laptop, no iPad, just the smartphone. I had the choice of over 40 devices - and I ended up going with the much-maligned Nokia N97. Here's why the N97 is still almost good enough in its twilight years/months - and here's how it performed when put to the extremes of outdoor use. I wasn't trying to destroy it, per se, but it certainly survived some abuse. I'd trail the end of the tale here... but you can probably guess!
One of the more interesting numbers I came across this weekend was in regards to the use of Facebook. With over 500 million members, some 30% of them are accessing the site through a mobile device. Which means that 150 million people are not using the desktop web interface for the social network site. How long until the majority of users around the world are from mobile handsets?
In All About Symbian Insight 133, we start with news of the Nokia 5250, Nokia's cheapest ever smartphone, following which, Steve shares some more detail from his recent reviews of Let's Golf and Mommax's Mains Battery Charger. Rafe talks about Nokia and Intel's new joint laboratory for 3D mobile user experiences. Finally Ewan gives us his commentary on the the re-branding of Nokia Music to Ovi Music. You can listen to AAS Insight 133 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Applications are rarely completely static. Anything with a decent amount of functionality is bound to have either flaws - which then hopefully get fixed - or planned improvements. The big question is how to best to get these new versions out to users. In this news editorial, I look at how application updates work for the three big smartphone platforms of the moment, Symbian, iPhone and Android. What can those in the Symbian world learn or implement?
