All About Symbian - News Headlines

News Headlines - Services

Microsoft Business Apps for Symbian Belle

Nokia today announced the forthcoming availability, in Q4 2011, of a number of Microsoft-developed business and productivity applications for the Symbian Belle platform. The update will include a number of new applications (OneNote, PowerPoint Broadcaster, Document Connection) and updates to existing applications (Lync 2010 and Exchange Active Sync), which will provide improved integration with Microsoft's business software and service offerings. Read on for more detail.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Industry, Services at 19:16 UTC, Sep 8th || Comments

Web-based access to Ovi Calendar to close at end of August

Nokia has announced that it plans to close web-based access to Ovi Calendar at the end of August. The sync service will continue to be available, but will now only operate as a backup for data. This means it will no longer be possible to view or edit calendar information through the Ovi.com website. Nokia says this was a business decision and that it "will help us to concentrate on our core service offerings". In reality, the decision is likely driven by the low numbers of active users of the web-based portion of the service.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Links of Interest, Services at 10:12 UTC, Aug 4th || Comments

Improved Nokia Maps Drive via Nokia Beta Labs

A new beta version of Nokia Maps, 3.08, has been released through Nokia Beta Labs, which brings a number of changes to the Drive (car navigation) functionality of the application. The most important of these is the ability to use live traffic information to automatically route you around traffic jams and other delays. There's also a new look and feel to the user interface (including a "Just drive" mode), the ability to set a contact as a destination and an easier to use Settings menu. The new beta also marks the brand switch from the Ovi Maps to Nokia Maps.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Services at 13:02 UTC, Jul 8th || Comments

Synchronica to acquire Nokia's operator messaging business

Synchronica, a UK based company that provides mobile messaging solution, is to acquire Nokia's operator branded messaging business. This business provides a number of American operators with branded email and IM applications and services. In addition, under a professional services contract (outsourcing), Synchronica will take over the development of the related Series 40 client software and the messaging gateway, which is used by both Series 40 and Symbian devices.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Industry, Services at 20:35 UTC, Jun 30th || Comments

Ovi Store hits 6 million downloads per day

Nokia's Ovi Store is continuing to grow at a rapid pace; it recently passed the 6 million downloads per day mark and now contains more than 48,000 content items, with approximately 1,000 news items being added each week. Symbian phones make up approximately 75% of the downloads (4.5 million), with Series 40 accounting for most of the remaining downloads (1.5 million). A total of 1.8 billion content items have been downloaded since June 2009.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Developer, Services at 10:08 UTC, Jun 24th || Comments

Nokia's Michael Halbherr to head combined NAVTEQ and social location business

Nokia has announced that it plans to integrate its NAVTEQ business with its social location (Maps) services and operations. The new Location & Commerce business unit, which will be headed by Michael Halbherr, is tasked with developing the next generation of social location products and services for consumers. It will also continue with NAVTEQ's traditional activities of building platform services for device manufacturers, developers and service providers, but will look to more fully integrate Nokia's deep data assets around consumer behaviour and related community data.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Industry, Services at 15:11 UTC, Jun 22nd || Comments

Live: Nokia Strategy and Financial Briefing

At a Strategy and Financial Briefing, which takes place at 10 am GMT on February 11th Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop, is expected to outline his vision for the future strategy of the company. Rafe will be reporting live from Intercontinental Park Lane Hotel, London, where the event is taking place. You can follow our live coverage using this story or via our Twitter accounts (@aas and @allaboutmeego).

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Hardware, Developer, Industry, Events, Services at 23:00 UTC, Feb 10th || Comments

Nokia Point & Find technology to find wider usage

A recent post of the Nokia Beta Labs blog indicates that Nokia will be discontinuing its augmented reality test-bed application - Nokia Point and Find. However it goes onto say that the underlying augmented reality (and visual search) technology will be incorporated into "the future of key experiences like Maps and Search". The technology may also become available to third party developers, presumably through a service API or similar provision.

# Posted by Rafe in Links of Interest, Developer, Services at 17:52 UTC, Jan 6th || Comments

Nokia Social updated and improved, adds one click social sharing

Nokia's Social networking application for its Symbian^3 devices (so far, the Nokia N8 and Nokia C7) has been updated to version 1.2. The most notable update is the ability to upload and share images and videos to social networks (Twitter and Facebook) directly from the Photos and Camera applications. Additionally, the overall UI of the application has been improved, with easier finger touch interaction and the use of larger font sizes (thankfully). Also updated is the homescreen widget and the process to link social network profiles to entries in the Contacts application.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Services at 18:40 UTC, Oct 27th || Comments

Ovi Music completing switch to DRM free

Nokia's UK music service, Ovi Music, is now DRM-free in its pay-per-track store. Nokia started switching its music stores last year; while new country launches moved straight to the DRM-free version, existing countries have been switched over only gradually. Ahead of next week's Nokia World and the launch of the N8, Nokia is moving over most of the remaining countries to the new version of the service, where there are no restrictions on how and when you play any of your music downloads.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Services at 11:20 UTC, Sep 11th || Comments

AAS Insight 134 - Nokia E5, Swype, Ovi, Samsung

In All About Symbian Insight 134, we start with news of new, community created Samsung i8910 firmware, which leads to a discussion of Samsung's mobile platform choices. Rafe discusses the Ovi Files closure and talks about how the thinking behind Nokia's Ovi service strategy has evolved. David shares his PixelPipe Send and Share experiences, before bringing news of UK operator Orange's HD Voice service. Ewan talks about Swype, an alternative text input entry system, which is now available in beta. Finally, Steve gives his first opinion on the Nokia E5.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Hardware, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 11:22 UTC, Sep 6th || 6 Comments

Orange UK launches HD Voice on the Nokia 5230, X6 and E5

Orange UK have announced a new service called HD Voice, which will give superior audio call quality over its 3G network on selected phones. Available free of charge, the service will initially be available to a small set of phones; Nokia's 5230, X6 and E5, plus the Samsung Omnia Pro. Having listened to test calls, it is a vast improvement, but not quite up to the claimed "Crystal Clear" quality as claimed. Click through to read our commentary.

# Posted by David in Hardware, Miscellaneous, Links of Interest, Services at 12:58 UTC, Sep 2nd || 2 Comments

Nokia closing Ovi Files service on October 1st 2010

Nokia Experts reports that Ovi Files, Nokia's remote file access and cloud-based file mirroring/storage solution, will be discontinued on October 1st. The announcement is a set back to Nokia's Ovi service ambitions, but with relatively few users and low awareness, the long-term impact is likely to be small. A number of third party services, such as SugarSync and DropBox, provide a similar service for those who need to move from Ovi Files.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Services at 23:12 UTC, Sep 1st || 17 Comments

Mobile web use now both function rich and looking to compete with the desktop

One of the more interesting numbers I came across this weekend was in regards to the use of Facebook. With over 500 million members, some 30% of them are accessing the site through a mobile device. Which means that 150 million people are not using the desktop web interface for the social network site. How long until the majority of users around the world are from mobile handsets?

# Posted by Ewan in Miscellaneous, Developer, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 10:34 UTC, Aug 31st || 4 Comments

AAS Insight 133 - Nokia 5250, 3D Lab, Ovi Music

In All About Symbian Insight 133, we start with news of the Nokia 5250, Nokia's cheapest ever smartphone, following which, Steve shares some more detail from his recent reviews of Let's Golf and Mommax's Mains Battery Charger. Rafe talks about Nokia and Intel's new joint laboratory for 3D mobile user experiences. Finally Ewan gives us his commentary on the the re-branding of Nokia Music to Ovi Music. You can listen to AAS Insight 133 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Hardware, Industry, Editorial Thoughts, Games, Services at 10:30 UTC, Aug 30th || 3 Comments

Application auto-update the way to go - as part of a two-pronged strategy?

Applications are rarely completely static. Anything with a decent amount of functionality is bound to have either flaws - which then hopefully get fixed - or planned improvements. The big question is how to best to get these new versions out to users. In this news editorial, I look at how application updates work for the three big smartphone platforms of the moment, Symbian, iPhone and Android. What can those in the Symbian world learn or implement?

# Posted by Steve in Software, Developer, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 7:13 UTC, Aug 30th || 32 Comments

Dropbox via SugarSync

You may remember Rafe talked about SugarSync in the last AAS Insight podcast? Now Rita el-Khoury (whose Symbian blogging death has apparently been exagerated!) has employed a little lateral thinking to combine SugarSync with Dropbox to provide a native client-based way to get at the latter's files. Pretty neat, though it's S60 5th Edition only and limited in terms of capacity (for free).

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Links of Interest, Services at 10:16 UTC, Aug 27th || 4 Comments

Position Art apparently alive and well

Self-proclaimed Position Art genius Stavros would have been proud, it seems that his art form is alive and well. At least according to the Ovi Blog's recent Sports Tracker competition, in which people were invited to send in their best captured 'tracks'. Here are the position art winners and, because I know you're wondering, here's Stavros's original Position Art mega-site "The World is my Canvas" - go on, browse around and watch - it's still a hoot, even two years on!

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Links of Interest, Services at 8:23 UTC, Aug 27th || 0 Comments

Bookatable.com added to Ovi Maps

Bookatable, a European-based restaurant booking service, has been added to Ovi Maps. As with other Ovi Maps integrations (TripAdvisor, TimeOut, Expedia, Qype), the service is available via 'More' from the main Ovi Maps menu. It gives rapid access to a mobile optimised, location aware, version of the bookatable.com service, which runs within, and is connected to, the Ovi Maps application. The aim is to offer a superior user experience to the typical restaurant-phone-around to check availability and book a table.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 18:58 UTC, Aug 20th || 2 Comments

How to publish to Audioboo via Nokia Share Online

Multimedia content creation on smartphone usually revolves around photos and videos, but what about the humble audio file? Audioboo is a popular audio clip publishing service and has mobile publishing clients for Android and iPhone. However, there is no support for Symbian devices. Never fear though, David Gilson is on the case and, in this how to article, shows us how to publish to Audioboo via Nokia Share Online and Pixelpipe's Audioboo plugin.

# Posted by Rafe in Software, Editorial Thoughts, Services at 21:19 UTC, Aug 18th || 4 Comments

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