Symbian is starting to crank up its presence at Mobile World Congress 2010, there's a new article here detailing the ways in which you can both help Symbian and help yourself. As a company, by cross-promoting your own products, as a developer by taking part in the BoF sessions, and as a general enthusiast by attending the Symbian party during the show (sponsors needed, if your company would like to promote itself at this evening event). And free MWC entry tickets are available in exchange for volunteer efforts on the Symbian booth. It's all kicking off in Barcelona, 15-18th Feb, 2009, so email Symbian if you want to get involved.
So what do you do when you're one of the targets of the network operators in France? This week I saw round the technology labs at Orange France to see a few minutes into the future. Under the guidance of Communications Director Eric Barilland, the “Orange Apartment” was my home for a few hours. Read on....
At its annual Capital Markets Day, Nokia has laid out its masterplan for 2010 and beyond. Extracts from the full press release are reproduced below (there are several nuggets of interest) and Rafe and Ewan weigh in with a few comments of their own. None of them will come as a suprise to regular readers, but it is good to see Nokia laying out a framework for the next 12 months.
Symbian and Orange are teaming up in the 'Symbian Developer BootCamp' in London on January 13th 2010. This is completely free and is "the ideal place to gain insight and hands-on experience with the Symbian Mobile Platform, leveraging our Runtime tools including Web, Adobe Flash Lite, Python, and QT". Intriguingly, they "will also have a limited number of Symbian devices to give away, these will be distributed on a first come, first served basis." Wonder how long those will last!
The GSM Association has announced the winners of the Asia Mobile Awards 2009, with the Nokia N97 mini walking away with the only hardware award, that of 'Best Mobile Handset'. It has been a good month for the 'mini' - you may remember it was named no. 1 in my Phones Show Autumn 2009 'Top 5' as well. And, I suspect, there are a few more awards to come from various corners. Watch this space.
Our very own Rafe has been caught on camera yet again - this time with Brad Rees (MediaCells) and Micky (NokiaUsers.net), talking about their thoughts of the The Way We Live Next 3.0 event, held in Espoo, Finland on the 10-11 November. I've embedded the 6 minute video below, but here's the YouTube link as well.
Nokia has (allegedly) officially spoken up (albeit at a Maemo-only event) about its plans for Maemo to take over new Nseries models by 2012, reports Ben Smith over at TRMP. According to the Nokia representatives at the event, although further Nseries Symbian-powered smartphones will appear in the meantime, it seems that after 2012, Symbian OS will power the new Xseries and Eseries smartphones and Maemo 5 will power the eye-candy-heavy Nseries top end. Of course, IF that is to happen, there's an awful lot of work needed by the Maemo team - watch for our analysis here both on All About Symbian and All About Maemo. Updated: Nokia official statement on the report below.
In a longer-than-usual Insight podcast, Rafe, Ewan and Steve cover all things Symbian, including a detailed report from The Way We Live Next, coverage of news from Gartner, Google/AdMob, discussion of Samsung dropping/not dropping Symbian, plus an extended reader/listener Q&A session. Listen here to AAS Insight number 95.
SEE 2009 (Symbian Exchange and Exposium) is Symbian's annual big show. In part 2 of my walkabout video you can join me on a amble around the show floor at SEE 2009. I share my impressions and analysis in an unscripted, one-take, walk and talk. Part 2 covers the remaining stands and concludes with some general thoughts on SEE 2009.
In All About Symbian Insight 94 (AAS Podcast 158), we round up a few loose items from SEE 2009 - the Nokia 6788 and the open sourcing of the EKA2 kernel. Then there's discussion of the official enabling of Ovi Store downloads, live tests of Google voice recognition in its Mobile Search product, thoughts on Opera 10 Mobile for Symbian from Ewan, news of a Symbian UI concept video from Rafe and details of the new version of BBC iPlayer from Steve. You can listen to AAS Insight 94 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Over the next two day I'm at Nokia's The Way We Live Next event, which 'features presentations and demonstrations from Nokia and our ecosystem partners, showing how Nokia are connecting and building the communities of the future'. You can follow along via our live coverage below or via @aas.
In All About Symbian Insight 93 (AAS Podcast 157) we discuss the Q3 smartphone figures from Canalys and Rafe explains that Fujitsu and Quic have joined the board of the Symbian Foundation. We move on to a retrospective of SEE 2009 with discussion of the media reaction (which send Rafe into rant mode). We finish with thoughts on N97 PR 2.0 and the closure of N-Gage (sniff). You can listen to AAS Insight 93 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
SEE 2009 (Symbian Exchange and Exposium) is Symbian's annual big show. In the video below you can join me on a walkabout around the show floor at SEE 2009. I share my impressions and analysis in an unscripted, one-take, walk and talk. As well as covering many of the Symbian related consultancy and developer tool companies there's also a quick look at the Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung stands.
Forum Nokia Kevin Sharp has produced a nice summary of Nokia's plans for Ovi Maps in terms of in-building navigation (think malls, airports, etc.), collating material from several recent events, much of it from Michael Halbherr, VP of Social Location. It's a good read, although the paragraph about Nokia collecting 'cell learning' data from our phones gave my privacy nerve a little prod. Comments welcome if you can expand on what Nokia is (or isn't) doing here!
