Nokia have launched a new 'Press To Print' (PDF link) system, aimed at operators but then coming at the man in the street via the operator's services. Press To Print should make it a little easier for non-PC-literate smartphone owners to get their snaps as hard copy.
The American FCC, which approves telecommunications devices, is one of the greatest leaks of new phones, and this time, the Nokia RM-67(N71-1), possibly codenamed "Gromit" after the beloved claymation dog (Update: we're told Gromit is the N90). With references to both flip modes, and a slider feature, there's hints of both the N71 and the N80 in the posted User's Manual. We'll probably see these models announced at next week's Nokia Mobility Conference, where All About Symbian will be reporting live from the exhibiton floor.
While the Motorola ROKR isn't a phone we normally cover, Wired's latest article, The Battle For The Soul Of The MP3 Phone, should be required reading for everyone even remotely interested in the big mobile battle of 2006 - the music playing phone. Why did Motorola and Apple make the decisions they did? Why have the 100 tune limit? And don't miss Nokia's N91 making a shadowy appearance - even without the open source P2P software demonstrated in the article it's looking like the phone to beat.
According to the latest (Q3) figures from Canalys, Nokia shipped over seven million Series 60 and Series 80 smartphones in the recently finished quarter, with over half the worldwide PDA/Smartphone market. Sales of standalone PDAs declined markedly again and Sony Ericsson's nowhere to be seen, though that should change when the P990 starts to become available.
Tom Hume's posted some interesting thoughts on the downside of the long tail (a business model particularly suited to internet and software - more info here). His job involves a large amount of working porting applications to mobile phones, and the cardinal rule of "always test on actual hardware" is the problem. As Hume puts it " 'Write once, run everywhere.' Stare into the mirror and say it's name three times - it doesn't appear, it's just a fairytale."
Nokia are continuing what can only be seen as a successful strategy of releasing demo versions of the big MMC Game Card titles - following the System Rush demo, fans of Rifts: Promise of Power can now download the first few levels of the full game from the N-Gage Arena. Rifts is expected to be released to the world in the next few weeks.
The Series60.com web site, run by all the Series 60 licensees, has been revamped and relaunched. See what you think. And, if you fill in their questionnaire, you might like to request acknowledgement of your favourite Symbian news and reviews site(!)
The Symbian Community Newsletter is always interesting, but in the wake of The Smartphone Show, this one's a must read, with lots of interesting hyperlinks.
Over on Forum Nokia (PDF link), there's a useful overview of how the new security system in Symbian OS 9 will work. Interesting reading for those with a technical bent.
Yes, our second 'version 3' item of the day. This time, though, it's for developers and geeks only. EMCC have done a PDF format guide to the innards of Series 60 v3 on their web site.
Chris Heathcote describes it as "The Future of Mobile Gaming," and who are we to argue? Series 60 Conkers has to be one of the greatest game ideas yet, and turns any device (in Chris case a 6630) into the gaming platform for the season... "the next generation of tangible physical locative mobile play" is here. And when all the conkers are finished, the extreme mode kicks in. Nice one Chris, but I need to check my insurance first for the latter.
Chris Heathcote describes it as "The Future of Mobile Gaming," and who are we to argue? Series 60 Conkers has to be one of the greatest game ideas yet, and turns any device (in Chris case a 6630) into the gaming platform for the season... "the next generation of tangible physical locative mobile play" is here. And when all the conkers are finished, the extreme mode kicks in. Nice one Chris, but I need to check my insurance first for the latter.
