Another Desert island Desktop interview, where someone's Smartphone comes under the microscope. I took a few moments at the recent Smartphone Show to sit down with Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford to find out what applications he's loaded onto his device.
If you care to go into Download! on your S60 phone and use 'Refresh', you'll see a maintenance note from Nokia saying that the system will be down all weekend. A sign that a major overhaul is afoot? Let's hope so. Comments welcome if you know any more info on this....
You wouldn't think we would mention the US elections on a site devoted to mobile devices, but there's an interesting and fast-growing phenomenon known as the "cellphone effect" which is potentially throwing polls off by several percentage points, reported over on the excellent fivethirtyeight.com. Essentially it boils down to this: some polling companies have a tendency to only interview people through their landline phones, so anyone without a landline simply isn't represented in their surveys. That means politicians with strong support among mobile-only households would do much better on election days than landline-only polls predict.
In AAS video podcast 35, I met up with Lori Sylvia and Richard Kinder of Red Bend at the Smartphone Show 2008, talking about their FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) software that's included in the latest Nokia S60 phones and having a hands-on demo.
More video from our coverage of the London Smartphone Show 2008, in which I chat to Phil and Tanya from Quickoffice about their new v6 office suite for S60, plus Sari from S60 waxes lyrical about S60 5th Edition.
At the Symbian Smartphone Show last week, S60's Lee Williams was announced as the Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation. Right after that, in an exclusive interview for All About Symbian, he sat down with Rafe and Ewan to talk in more depth about the plans for the Foundation, and to discuss what he brings to the table.
In the second of my video items from The Smartphone Show 2008, I chat to Symbian about their latest FreePlay demo (Wi-Fi to GSM handover) and to VirtualLogix about the possibility of running Linux and Symbian together in the same device...
Yup. There's one show photo that we simply couldn't decide on a caption for. So it's down to you. We have Ewan, Symbian CEO Nigel Clifford and Rafe chewing the cud in the press area. But what on earth's going on? You decide! Best one line caption in the comments wins some mystery star goodies..... [Winner chosen... see below]
In the first of our video features from this week's Smartphone Show 2008, I chat in AAS video podcast 31 to Michael Shean from Skyhook and Loughlin Spollen from Tagggit about their Wi-Fi-based location technology and the first S60 native app to use it.
My Phones Show 67 just went live, with a hands-on preview and thoughts on the S60 5th Edition-powered Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ('Tube'), plus a cross-platform feature analysing 'Which phone should you buy?'. Note also the RSS feeds for the standard and hi-res versions of the show, for your feedreader, browser or iTunes. And yes, Rafe's official AAS preview of the 5800 is coming soon, don't worry....
'As Live' from the 2008 Symbian Smartphone Show, here's All About Symbian Insight no. 44, hosted by Ewan Spence, with Rafe Blandford and Steve Litchfield; guests include (but not limited to ) Nigel Clifford, Stuart Clark, Andrew Grill and James Whatley. 40 minutes long and plenty of gossip, info and fun...
Google just improved the way GMail Contacts worked. Previously, trying to sync a S60 phone with this (usually through GooSync) meant having to put up with hundreds of 'fake' contacts (added 'helpfully' by GMail, the people you've replied to more than 5 times), all of which then made it down the (virtual) wire to your phone's Contacts at sync time. Ugh. Well, check GMail Contacts now and you'll see there's a new 'Suggested' list, acting as a manual pre-filter before any of these extra addresses get added to your GMail Contacts. Good system and it should ease the syncing woes of many. Even better, the suggestions are back dated, so previous unwanted additions are 'undone'. Comments welcome!
It's fitting that the Carnival of the Mobilists should come from London this week, as the attention of the mobile world is focussed on Earls Court and Symbian's annual Smartphone Show. Carnival 146 is here and good reading on your travels into London...
Sigh. Another month, another needless high profile security scare. The BBC should know better. In this case, they talk to a Mr Coney, who (surprise, surprise) happens to sell security software. He's quoted as saying "One of common types we see now runs amok on the Symbian platform. These viruses work their way through the contact book, sending themselves out to every subscriber who has been called or has called that handset." What a load of rubbish, timed to go live on the eve of the Symbian show, too. Read on.
It's all very well standing there smugly with your new Nokia N or Eseries phone, knowing that it's functionally superior to your friend's Apple iPhone. But when you both turn on your devices, it's the iPhone that people gather round, partly because of the larger screen, but also partly to watch its party tricks. Watching these tricks, you might well ask: 'Why can't my S60 phone do that?' Chances are, it can, with a few software caveats...
