For an All About Symbian podcast with a difference, join Ewan, Ricky Cadden, Charlie Schnick and Molly Schonthal (the latter two from Nokia) on the show floor at SXSW in the States this week. The discussion's a little more chaotic than usual, but they cover devices, UIs and apps, before moving on to the organisational miracle that is Ewan's Filofax.... Presenting Podcast 119.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the fourth of his regular video reports, embedded below, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Ewan talks about connectivity, Twitter and TwitPic (using Gravity), plus the delights of using a predictive (virtual) keypad that's twice the size of a regular one.
Yes, Ewan's heading off for a three week tour of the USA (Twitter feed here), taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the third of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 3 of this series, in which he chats about connectivity, the touch interface generally, the contact bar homescreen and handwriting and T9 text input.
Nokia will be holding a four-hour question and answer event for publishers and developers interested in the upcoming Ovi Store on-phone content shop. The registration link and more details are available below.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week tour of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. This is the second of his regular video reports, letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below is part 2 of this series.
After MWC, CeBIT is always a let-down in terms of mobile phones, and noone from AAS has been attending. However, lest you feel like you're missing out, Norman John from SymbianWorld (this being his 'home' event) has produced an illustrated report.
Yes, Ewan's heading off (Twitter feed here) for a three week your of the USA, taking in social media and gaming events. To try and add a little Symbian spice to proceedings, we insisted he take the Nokia 5800 with him, to really try it out 'on the road'. He's going to be sending back regular video reports, hopefully giving a flavour of where he is and what he's doing, but mainly letting us know how he's getting on with S60 5th Edition and the 5800. Embedded below the break is part 1 of this series.
The Nokia Events site is showcasing an upcoming Nokia virtual launch (online only) event, which is related to music. It's likely we'll hear about new XpressMusic device(s), as well well as updates around Nokia's music strategy. The announcement will be made at 10am CET (9am GMT). DRM-free music in the Nokia Music Store, updates to Comes with Music, new market roll out plans, price cuts? Let the speculation begin!
Here's the final batch of high resolution images from Mobile World Congress 2009 from Rafe. Immaculately done as usual, click through any image for the full size JPG. Featured here are the Nokia E55 (compact qwerty keyboard), the Nokia E75 (side-sliding qwerty) and Nokia 5630 XpressMusic (mid-range music phone, with 'Say and Play'). Enjoy. See the comments threads on the individual galleries.
Rafe's been busy sorting through his snaps again - in these three gorgeous galleries he brings us close-up photos of the Nokia N86 8MP (great build materials, arguably best camera ever in a phone), the 6710 Navigator (GPS, compass, zoom strip) and the 6720 Classic (active noise cancellation), all launched at the event. Click through and enjoy each of these. And then buy Rafe a humungous beer the next time you see him.
Nokia's Second Life team continue with their regular events, and this Saturday the February edition of the Nokia Connected Worlds panels will take place on the Nokia Island in the virtual world. This month, Hydra and the team will be discussing the issues of disability in SL and other systems, and how they act as enabling tools for many.
One thing which Rafe witnessed at MWC was Stantum's demonstrations of some insanely responsive multi-touch applets working on a standard resistive touchscreen. Leaving aside the demo applets (and also Rafe's own comments, he's still writing up MWC as we speak), then surely this type of technology is what Nokia should be building into its touchscreen phones, so that text input can be increased over the currently limited speeds? Demo and more below.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be available in Australia on the 20th of March, and the Comes With Music all-you-can-eat subscription service will launch there simultaneously. The Nokia 5800 will have a recommended retail price of 979 AUD (£440) for a device with a 12 month Comes with Music subscription.
You'll forgive me appearing to be sucking up to the 'boss', but Rafe has done an exemplary job with his photography at this year's Mobile World Congress. Witness the first of his in depth photo galleries, this time featuring the highest specification phone any of us is likely to hold in 2009, the Samsung Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition. Rafe takes us over the device in gory detail, so enjoy!
The Phones Show, programme 76, is now up, with my own compilation of MWC news and thoughts, plus musings on Google Latitude and a demo of the wierdest 5800 XpressMusic bug... Of special note is that there's a new theme tune (hurrah) and that I've finally hit on the Holy Grail of Nseries-shot MP4 video editing - it's the new iMovie 09 on Mac OS and it's stonkingly good. More on this shortly on AAS.
