Ever so quietly, Nokia has upgraded and updated its (free and fabulous) Mobile Search tool for all Nokia S60 smartphones from the 6630 onwards. The new version is 1.2.a and can be downloaded here. If you haven't heard of the tool before, see also Rafe's detailed analysis and in-depth test.
OK, so last week's re-launch got hit by the server going into meltdown and hardly anyone being able to get in... Hopefully, it's a lot faster now, so (drum roll) may I (re)present PocketInfo, with lots of free spreadsheets and documents for all Nokia 9210, 9300 and 9500 Communicators...
Symbian's David Wood has done many wonderful things in his career. But coining 'Platformization' isn't one of them. Sorry. Still, if you'd like to hear the word used in its proper(?) context, here's his latest Insight column over on the Symbian web site.
Not a smartphone in the true sense, but the form factor of this new Samsung offering is truly groundbreaking. Maybe this is the shape (and size) of things to come? Engadget's got the details.
Steve's been getting so confused by the sheer number of Series 60 smartphones (especially with all the new Nokia announcements) that he's made a handy all-on-one-page comparison chart over on his 3-Lib site. As usual comments and suggestions are welcome.
After just being nominated for a BAFTA (really), Ewan's off to the USA again, this time to Seattle and then Mobile Monday in San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles and the Portable Media and Podcast Expo. AAS and AAP readers in the States might like to keep abreast of his movements via his blog and schedule a meet?
A regular pop-up in the news here, but my Grid of mobile devices has been updated again, over at 3-Lib. Gone is the Sendo X (still crying over that one), new is the Orange M2000 and clones. Suggestions for additions to the Grid are welcomed!
Interesting reading in this story on Yahoo. Summary: Nokia are both disappointed by N-Gage sales so far (but what do they expect with such old OS and S60 versions, plus competition from other handheld gaming devices) and upbeat about plans to expand the 'platform' (i.e. the games) to other smartphones.
Perception is everything when looking at the relations between companies. Ed Colligan (Palm, inc) is putting more distance between Palm and Symbian - after all, he sees Nokia as 'owning' Symbian, and the American carriers all wanted Microsoft enterprise devices. And Symbian's thoughts? "Microsoft is more of a distraction factor," said David Wood, Symbian executive VP of research - naturally, as Symbian are pushing into the mid-range now (report from Datamonitor).
Throwing around quotes about the damage Music Phones might possibly do to the mainstream music ("If piracy on the internet was a tidal wave, this is going to be a tsunami") really doesn't explain the problem. The Guardian reports on the next evil to infest our phones from a number of music executives. Obviously they're forgeting that a 5mb mp3 file over GPRS will probably cost more than buying the next Clone Boy Band album. Further commentary at MoCoNews and Ringtonia.
So are the problems facing the Mobile Games Industry (see Mobhappy) simply down to not treating mobiles games as seperate from console games? Tom Hume thinks so, and addresses the original points over at his blog: "Mobile device will always be an inferior game platform. Sorry, I don't buy that; or has my chess-set been obsoleted by my Gamecube because it's only got a resolution of 8 x 8?"
If you owned a Psion palmtop back in the late 1990s, you'll have heard of the Psion-sponsored PocketInfo web site, with useful spreadsheet 'applications' and documents. It has now been relaunched, with a large proportion of the content now available in native Nokia 9300 and 9500 Communicator format. More over at PocketInfo.
