It seems CorePlayer (among other apps) has new competition on S60 - JulyPlayer is now available, in (very) early version 1 form, for both S60 3rd Edition and 5th Edition and claims to play an impressive list of video formats. Trial versions let you test file compatibility and full versions are $10. It's early days though and both the interface and player performance looked like they could do with a lot of feedback from you guys (via their new forums) and subsequent iteration. See below for some screens. Comments welcome if you've tried it yet.
The new hardware may still be sitting on the launch pad, but the upgrade to the GPS system is under way (reports the LA Times). Now firmly entrenched in the smartphone world, the new target for GPS accuracy is not 20 feet but "an arm’s length" of about one foot, and it’s going to happen through a replacement program of 24 satellites over the next few years.
Noted security technologist Bruce Schneier has pointed to a Microsoft research paper on the design of software applications that ask for user authority to access certain functions. While primarily looking at web based apps, this is a relevant area for mobile design, and ties in with the security model employed by Symbian.
The HX series of firmwares for the Samsung i8910 HD continue to roll out, with v5 the best yet, with a number of important fixes and detailed improvements, including, critically, fixing the Java certificate problem and improving battery life. As ever, these firmwares are 100% unofficial, but they're easy to apply* and can dramatically transform this old but still powerful smartphone. Comments welcome if you get a chance to try it on your i8910. Changelog extracts and link below.
With location based services the latest “next big thing” it’s interesting watching the major and minor players slowly set out their stall to end users and developers. Today it’s the turn of Google, as they announce the public API for their Latitude service.
On Monday NTT DOCOMO announced its summer 2010 collection of mobile phones; of the 20 phones announced, 7 are running MOAP-S (based on Symbian). These include the F06-B, F-07B, and F-08B from Fujitsu and the SH-08B, SH-02B Marimekko, SH-08B and SH-09B from Sharp. The F-06B can shoot full HD (1920×1080) video on its 13.2 megapixel camera, is fully waterproof to 1.5 metres (so you can shoot video underwater), can act as a WiFi hotspot and has a WVGA touchscreen.
Facebook have announced0.facebook.com, a specially adapted version of the Facebook Mobile site (m.facebook.com) geared towards an even faster mobile experience, by reducing images on display, and reduced cost to the browsing mobile user. 0.facebook.com is only accessible through certain mobile phone networks (everyone else is pointed to the normal mobile site), but those networks will provide access to Facebook for free.
In an entirely self-centric link-of-interest, I thought these brief items might be of interest: The Phones Show 111 is now out, with a tour round my Psion collection and a commentary on how these led to the modern Symbian age, and with a feature on getting better photos from your smartphone camera; there have also been three new devices added to my smartphone-choosing Grid; and don't forget the Phones Show Chat audio podcast, about an hour each week - PSC 39 featured Andy Lee, a Blackberry expert, Tim and I were keen to talk to him about comparisons with the Nokia E72.
More stats breakdowns are now in from the smartphone world in Q1, 2010, this time courtesy of Gartner, linked below. Are we in danger of information overload?(!) In line with other reports, the smartphone market is broken down, worldwide, by operating system, with sales of Symbian-powered smartphones up a whopping 35% year on year, though market share is down 4.5%, due to the way the overall market grew even faster, by just over 48%. More numbers below.
The Shazam application is becoming more visible in Symbian, what with over a million downloads through the Ovi Store, and preloaded onto a number of Symbian devices either out of the box (5630) or through the firmware update (the 5800) and it’s paying off for the company. The “what is that tune I can hear” application has now indexed over one billion songs, and the user base is 75 million.
Leah Betancourt is wondering why the location based services so beloved of Web 2.0 people haven’t taken off and been adopted by the general public. The arguments boil down to two areas (“privacy issues” and “where is the value”) and an easy solution doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. More below.
Canalys have chipped in with their version of the worldwide Q1 2010 figures for phones and smartphones. Most numbers are similar to the IDC/Gartner ones (e.g. Nokia 38.8% world smartphone marketshare, RIM 19.2%, Apple 15.9%), but there are extra numbers brought out, such as breaking down the different interfaces and form factors. See below.
Not Symbian-related, but hopefully of interest, especially to long time fans of the Nokia Communicator series, is Sony's re-launch of its VAIO P Series, a clamshell sub-netbook that is claimed to fit in a jeans pocket. Details, images and links below, though the fact that it runs Windows may be a dealbreaker for some, I suspect.
Nokia have always talked about how their software and services, via Ovi, are opening up the connected world and the internet to millions of people all over the world – and one of the biggest enablers in this area is the ability for people to use their first email address. Over on the Ovi Blog they’ve highlighted one example in Bangladesh with the Finns rolling out Ovi branded “burger vans” to promote the Ovi Mail service. Read on for some comments.
You'll have been followingmy adventures keeping the Samsung i8910 HD on the crest of an unofficial hardware wave by installing each of the 'HX' firmwares? Just over a week ago saw the release of what is by far the most adventurous HX release yet. I try to summarise (and comment on) the changelog below, for any other owners of what (for the next couple of months, at least) is still the most powerful Symbian phone in the world bar none.
