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.
Well spotted Yash for noticing that both Opera Mini and Opera Mobile have received big updates, to versions 6.1 and 11.1 respectively. There's the main changelog below, but I'd highlight the iPhone-like web page text selection as the main reason to upgrade. They're both free, work on all Symbian phones, and are available now from m.opera.com in the 'other' web browser on your Symbian device.
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.
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.
Nokia Social 1.3, whose official appearance in the Ovi Store was reported on here, has formally 'graduated' from Nokia Beta Labs, according to a blog post today. Apparently it won't also appear in Nokia SW_update on current devices until Symbian Anna is released, presumably for technical reasons, so grab it from the Store instead for now. Interestingly, Nokia Social 1.4 was teased, including better Facebook integration and performance, plus automatic contact linking and smoother kinetic scrolling.
The Qt Labs Developer Blog has just announced an update to the Qt SDK. In a case of good timing, the Qt team have released Qt Creator 2.2.1, which is mainly a bug fix release, at the same time as integrating support for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. Support for MeeGo Harmattan comes on the day that the N9 was announced at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore. Read on for more details.
Nokia made a number of important announcements today at its Nokia Connection event in Singapore. The Nokia N9, a MeeGo Harmattan smartphone, was announced. Equally important was the announcement that Qt would be at the core of bringing applications to the next billion users, indicating that Nokia intends to bring Qt to its mobile phone devices. Nokia also announced three new Touch and Type Series 40 devices.
Somewhat bizarrely, Nokia Social 1.3 has received a formal release - through the Ovi Store, reports ZOMG, it's CJ. Build 1.3 (215) is now online and downloadable. Interestingly, build '215' is also available through Sw_update for the Nokia X7, so presumably we'll see this version through Sw_update for the likes of the N8, C7 and E7, in due course. There are some installation caveats and oddities though...
Back in March last year, I had a look at the Qt based Wordpress client for Symbian. Back then I said it needed to "fill in some obvious gaps and improve the stability" and I've recently gone back to see how the client has progressed in the last year. The good news is that this is still the best mobile client for Wordpress out there, but the improvements have made it even more useful.
Communications tool Fring has received a new client update for Symbian handsets, which you can download direct to your handset from m.fring.com. Bringing together a number of IM protocols as well as VoiIP protocols, such as Google Talk, alongside Fring's own system to allow users to video and audio calls, Fring promises to be a central hub to help you keep in touch, while potentially saving money compared to the cost of making calls over your network provider.
What a great idea - step through the alphabet and pick the best Symbian application starting with that letter. And, impressively, every letter has a great suggestion here in 'The Essential A-Z of Nokia Apps', from Angry Birds to Zuma. Well worth a quick scan - maybe you can come up with better suggestion here and there?
An update to Ovi Store application, version 2.08, is currently being rolled out, by Nokia, for its Symbian^3 devices (N8, C7, C6-01, E7). Along with improvements at the server-side, the update enables the automatic detection and provisioning of updates for applications that have already been installed. Users will be automatically prompted to download and install the client update when they next open the Ovi Store application.
Foursquare fans on Symbian looking for an alternative to the official client might like to look at NeliSquare from Tommi Laukkanen. This Qt based application, originally developed for the N900, has now been compiled for Symbian. While still in alpha, it's slick, easy to use, and runs a little faster.
Today, Nokia Beta Labs released Nokia Play To for Symbian^3. This application allows you to show and play media, stored on your phone, over WiFi, on compatible devices, such as TVs, home audio systems and PCs. The application uses DLNA, which means no configuration is need once WiFi is on and all devices are connected to the same network. It's a great way to show off your latest photo, videos and music download to your friends.
Nokia's Battery Monitor utility has been proving its worth on many of our smartphones over the last six months, first in beta and then in production form. The UI of the previous version was implemented in Web runtime, whereas this new version 2.0, exclusively for Symbian^3-powered phones, has a UI fashioned from Qt and is slicker and faster as a result. There are significant other improvements too, detailed below.
