Rafe's been chatting to Colin Mercer, the man behind the Nokia-sponsored 'All About N91' blog (no, nothing to do with AAS, depite the name). An interesting and open blog with no corporate agenda? A good way to bring developers, journalists and users together?
Nokia has released its Q2 2006 financial and sales results. The overall picture is healthy with sales up 22% (78.4m of 230m industry total). In the converged device (smartphone) space Nokia sold 9 million units compared to 6.7 million units in Q2 2005. Nseries device shipments are up 60% from Q1 2006 to 3 million. The converged device segment continues to be the fastest growing area in mobile device volumes.
Symbian today announced that over 10 million mobile Symbian OS powered phones have shipped in Japan as of the end of May 2006. Since 2003 (FOMA F2051) 35 different models from 6 handsets vendors (Fujitsu, Mitsubuishi, Sharp, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson) have been brought to the market. Sales on Symbian phones in Japan represent about 11% of Symbian's total shipments of 89 million phones.
Symbian OS 9.3 has been announced, whose highlights include shorter start up times, better performance, native support for Wi-Fi, PushToTalk and USB 2.0 (previously these were added in by licensees) and FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) upgrades. Symbian OS 9.3 is likely to be used in S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. The first OS 9.3 phones will be announced shortly. The full press release follows.
Although compiled in the USA and with a natural bias, this M:Metrics survey makes interesting reading. Highlights include smartphone penetration in the UK being 6.6%, S60 smartphones topping smartphone sales in Europe (no surprise there) and that around half of all N70 owners go online for content.
The web site of Symbian's annual Smartphone Show is now more or less fully online. It's the 17th-18th October, of course, with the AllAboutSymbian meet on the evening of the 16th. New to the Show this year are extra developer sessions and admission to all for the main CEO keynote sessions - perhaps in an attempt to liven up what was quite a staid spectacle last year. The main floor is also extended, so there's more to see.
It seems that DVB-H digital TV is still some way off yet, dashing hopes that (for example) the Nokia N92 might arrive late summer. Nokia has announced yet another trial, this time in Sweden, in the last quarter of 2006. We're guessing that implementing country-wide DVB-H isn't as straightforward as we first thought. Press release follows...
W3C, the standards body behind the Web, have released new guidelines, dubbed "Mobile Web Best Practices" and signed off by many major names, including Microsoft and Nokia. The document is a must-read for anyone producing smartphone/PDA-friendly web content.
Openbit Ltd, a well known Symbian developer and service provider, is to concentrate efforts on its on-device mobile payment and digital rights management solution - Openbit License Manager. Openbit's other business operations wll be divested to other companies, Packet Video has acquired Openbit's Multimedia business and it's Software Market (Nokia's online software shop) has been trasnferred to Soft Invest Oy.
Bill Ray, over at El Reg, has penned a useful editorial on the problems facing Nokia and Sony Ericsson as new users pick up version 3 handsets and find that a large proportion of 'Series 60' and 'UIQ' software doesn't work. As ever, user education is the key here and both manufacturers and developers need to spell the third party software situation out for beginners, in my opinion.
There's an interesting analysis of the mobile digital TV wars over on Open Gardens, where Ajit has obviously gone all out to try and win a Carnival of the Mobilists prize! His conclusion? Both formats will win!
Blaze, one of the leading mobile game publishers, has announced a high profile sequel to Lock 'n' Load, it's first person shoot-em-up. Lock ‘n Load 2 for S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3 (as well as some older platforms) is set in fully rendered 3D environments and you can find both Nokia N80 high-resolution screenshots and the press release below.
