If you're a reader here then you'll be interested in keeping up with goings on over on the official Symbian Foundation blog. The site just got itself a big facelift, with the home page sporting 'channels' (think categories), a blogger sidebar (highlighted people at the Foundation), in addition to the existing panels highlighting videos, tweets, and so on. The site also now offers a way to quickly share any post via Twitter or Facebook. Good stuff, go check it out. And here's the RSS feed for catching directly.
Pocketgear today announced that it had acquired Handango for an undisclosed sum. Both are well known for their roles as application aggregators and electronic software distributors (ESDs) and run application stores for all the major mobile platforms. Many Symbian developers have used the companies as distribution channels for their software, although recently attention has switched to manufacturer stores such as Sony Ericsson's PlayNow and Nokia's Ovi Store.
ArsTechnica have taken a good look at network congestion on AT&T in the US and O2 in the UK to try and find out why modern smartphones that drop the data connection as soon as possible to save battery are causing so many problems for the networks, and causing frustration for the end users.'
David Gilson dips into his wallet to subscribe to the tenner-a-month Spotify Premium, giving him streaming and download access to just about all the DRM-ed music he'd ever want from Spotify's servers. Is it ultimately worth it and how good (or limited) is the mobile (S60) client? Find out in David's detailed Spotify Premium review.
At Mobile World Congress, I sat down with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, to talk about the Nokia N97. The highly anticipated device was released last summer and while it has been a commercial success for Nokia, it has been subject to a great deal of criticism from consumers for its software and underpowered hardware.
With the release of version 20 and 21 of the firmware, many of the software issues have been resolved. In the video, Anssi Vanjoki acknowledges the issues and explains how Nokia has learnt important lessons, which have been fed into the process of creating Symbian^3 and Symbian^3 devices. He says that "we have taken the learnings and when Symbian^3 comes out you can rest assured it will be perfect".
Rafe introduces All About Symbian's and Mobile Industry Review's video coverage of Mobile World Congress 2010. Over the next five weeks we'll be bringing you more than 70 videos covering a wide variety of subjects including interviews, walkabouts, stand tours, handset demos, developer profiles, software showcases and much more. This video provides an introduction to MWC and describes some of the forthcoming content.
Just catching up with some links. Worth noting is that over half the world's Internet users now use only a phone for access, according to Tomi T Ahonen, reporting on an OPK interview. Tomi's the right person to believe when big numbers are being bandied around, of course, even if the headline is set to shock most Western geeks.
Wordpress bloggers will be interested in the Open Sourced blogging client being developed for Maemo and Symbian using Qt. The blog for the client can be found here, along with the relevant downloads for the latest version. The software is still being developed, but you can get the latest builds and contribute to the project at dev.nokia.wordpress.org.
The well respected 'tnkgrl' takes on the Nokia N86 here, comparing its results to those from two other top camera phones. It's fair to dsay that she was impressed though not blown away - and most interestingly of all, she also experienced the 'frame drops soon after initial capture' that I've been battling with (more description below). Comments welcome if you too have seen this.
More updates to the Opera Mobile browser (which we looked at in depth here), Beta 3 of the latest version is now available. Opera Mobile is a natively coded web browser (as opposed to the java based Opera Mini), stressing tabbed browsing, optimised rendering for smaller screened devices and faster browsing. Head over to m.opera.com/mobile to download the newest build.
Launched in the Ovi Store (as freeware) is 'Friends Birthday', a small app with a heart of gold - in that it will endear itself to you and you to your friends, as you seemingly remember (and do something about) all their birthdays. Using your Facebook information, Ewan has taken a look at Friends birthday in this mini-review - it's well worth a download.
Mark Suster makes a good argument that the way forward for the majority of mobile apps is not on-device applications, but in the cloud and accessed through widgets and browsers. Going down the App for everything: “It is a step backward for our industry. It is a waste for most brands. It is a channel disguised in business clothing”. A few more quotes below.
The next round of Apple vs Nokia in the patent wars was announced yesterday. By my mind it goes something like this: Nokia reported Apple to the International Trade Commission; Apple subsequently reported Nokia to the ITC; the ITC announced they would formally look into Nokia’s complaint; and yesterday they said they would also formally look at Apple’s complaint. There’s more lawyer-y talk at the Reuters report of this latest step.
One of the more interesting design choices Nokia have made in their firmware is the dropping of two multimedia applications on the later E-Series devices, namely Internet Radio and Podcasting. While third party applications (such as Escarpod) are available, those of you looking to get the original Nokia application on your device should head over to Symbian-Guru’s latest tutorial, which takes you through the process.
