Sony Ericsson announces new applications from partners for its UIQ 3-based phones
14 February 2006
Following up on the announcement at The Smartphone Show in October 2005, where Sony Ericsson introduced the P990, its next generation smartphone, to the global development community, Sony Ericsson Developer World now reveals the first selection of partner applications developed for the phone.
The breadth of partners from various countries demonstrates Sony Ericsson Developer World’s commitment to support professional, mobile developers from its growing development community with everything they need throughout the development and go-to-market process. The ultimate goal is achieved when commercial applications are being launched for Sony Ericsson phones.
“We are looking forward to a fruitful relationship with these and more partners to come for the new range of Symbian OS UIQ 3-based phones. We are happy that our phones continue to generate great interest from the global developer community, resulting in a broad portfolio of applications enhancing business and productivity, imaging, gaming, entertainment and more,” said Ulf Wretling, Director, Head of Content Planning & Management at Sony Ericsson.
The P990 smartphone is based on Symbian OS™ version 9.1 and the open software platform UIQ 3.0. It also supports the Java™ ME Platform based CDC (Connected Device Configuration) and CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration) environments. 32MB of the standard 64MB available on the Memory Stick included in the box is reserved for partner applications. Eleven applications covering business and productivity, security, entertainment, translation and mobile navigation have already been confirmed for preload on the Memory Stick with the phone. The applications will be provided as Try & Buy versions, with direct links to the Sony Ericsson Application Shop for download and purchase of the full versions.
Sony Ericsson is pleased to announce that the following partners have been selected for the preload offering:
3GVision is a leading provider of camera recognition solutions and has developed the world’s first dictionary using the mobile phone camera to read and translate words. The Scanning Dictionary can be used on any printed text: point – click – translate. 3GVision Scanning Dictionary can translate words directly from books, newspapers, restaurant menus, computer screens, billboards and more. This innovative application answers real needs of mobile users and adds tremendous value to having an in-built digital camera on the phone. In addition, it supports all the features provided by leading electronic dictionaries.
Appello turns the P990 into an all-inclusive satellite navigation system with its WISEPILOT™ application, providing location-based turn-by-turn instructions with maps so far covering Europe and North America. With this application, already popular on several other Sony Ericsson phones, users can also view current traffic situation, get speed camera alerts, road and highway exit sign information and find people and companies in integrated directory listings.
Birdstep has created a hosted roaming service allowing P990 users to enjoy seamless mobile connectivity across Wireless LAN and GSM/GPRS/UMTS networks, independent of operator or subscription type. The SmartRoaming Client ensures secure and automatic network identification, user authentication and continuous network connection without application downtime or the user needing to know what network is available, how to connect or worrying about security risks. Through setting SmartRoaming profiles the enterprise or individual user can define network preferences based on policies that make sense for work efficiency and cost management.
EPOCWARE is an experienced development company and long-lasting Symbian OS partner with a good track record of applications for Sony Ericsson smartphones, several of them best-selling applications in the industry. The Handy Day, Handy Safe and Handy Expense applications allow the P990 user to get an overview of appointments and tasks, quickly launch favorite applications, safely store and manage personal information like credit card numbers, user names, passwords, codes and accounts, and track and manage expense reports while traveling. With SlovoEd dictionaries the P990 becomes a multi-lingual, mobile translation tool that is always at hand.
MobiMate is a developer of some of the top-selling applications on the Symbian OS UIQ platform. The track record of the WorldMate application on previous Sony Ericsson smartphones made this a natural choice for preload with the P990. This award-winning travel service provides subscribers with access to critical travel-related information anywhere, anytime. Features like weather forecasts, world maps, flight schedules and real-time flight status, weight and measurement conversions, country and area dialing codes, currency exchange rates and world clocks make this application ideal for business travelers and backpackers alike.
Mobipocket, recently acquired by Amazon.com indicating ever-increasing interest and trust in the mobile content market, continues to provide Sony Ericsson smartphone users with easy access and reading of e-books and e-news through its new UIQ 3 version of the successful Mobipocket Reader. Thousands of titles including current best-sellers, world-renowned dictionaries as well as major e-news websites, RSS feeds and weblogs are available for purchase and download for easy reading directly on the P990.
Rock Your Mobile! has created a software calculator resembling the functionality of some of the most advanced, regular calculators that you can purchase at an electronics store. The Abakus calculator allows the P990 smartphone to be used both by people wanting a basic calculator with large software buttons and an easy-to-use interface and by more advanced users for complicated scientific calculations including logarithmic and exponential functions, operations and conversions in binary, octal, decimal and hexadecimal form.
SMOBILE Systems (formerly known as FB-4) creates mobile security software to prevent intrusions and data compromises. Their SMSGuard is an application that lets the P990 user filter incoming text messages to successfully block messages from unauthorized senders without interrupting authorized messages. The application allows the user to create a blacklist of numbers and have SMS messages received from those numbers either automatically deleted or moved into a spam folder. With SMSGuard the user can also control the alert or dialog that occurs when an SMS message is received by the phone.
Wayfinder has had their mobile navigation application distributed in many countries and successfully bundled together with Sony Ericsson’s previous smartphones. Wayfinder Navigator can be used as a stand-alone map application or together with a small Bluetooth™ GPS box that keeps track of the user's position to provide turn-by-turn instructions. With the new UIQ 3 version it’s also possible to see where WiFi hotspots are available in order to use the P990’s WLAN capability to access your corporate network and e-mail.
WebGate has been successful with their Advanced Call Manager application for the Sony Ericsson P910 in China and several markets in Asia Pacific, and now provides a UIQ 3 version for the P990. Advanced Call Manager is an application for convenient management of incoming calls, recognized by a growing number of customers worldwide as a must-have tool in their busy daily lives.
ZingMagic is an expert on board, card and puzzle games and complements the diverse offering of the new Sony Ericsson P990 well with its excellent Chess Professional and popular Zingles games. ZingMagic's award winning Chess Professional is a stimulating and challenging game for beginners and champions alike. Based on a powerful chess engine written by a world renowned chess programmer, consumers can not only play the mobile computer but also each other via Bluetooth™ or SMS. Zingles, also known as Sudoku™, is a simple yet highly addictive, logic puzzle game.
More applications for Sony Ericsson’s new range of UIQ 3-based phones will follow. Symbian OS and Java ME developers interested in creating applications for Sony Ericsson phones are encouraged to visit the Sony Ericsson Developer World portal at www.sonyericsson.com/developer to find everything they need to get started.
More information about these partners is available at: www.3gvision.com , www.appello.se , www.birdstep.com, www.epocware.com , www.mobimate.com, www.mobipocket.com, www.Rock-Your-Mobile.com, www.smobilesystems.com , www.wayfinder.com , www.webgate.bg and www.zingmagic.com.