In his video guide to the Symbian Smartphone Show 2006 Steve offers a few video highlights, recorded using his Nokia N93, including a quick look at the new S60 phones, the LG JoY and Samsung i520, and video interviews with CoPilot, F-Secure, Sling Media, among others.
Kudos to the people at Symbian for better communications with the media than ever during this year's Show. Included in the press pack was a bound book with some very clear illustrations of just how far Symbian has come. Read on for links and comment.
Nokia has been issuing its Q3 results, the full press release follows. Unsurprising stats from the release are that multimedia (Nseries) smartphone sales are up 45% year on year, and that enterprise (now mainly Eseries) communicator sales are up by 27%.
An apparently genuine Nokia document contains some interesting details about their Next Gen gaming platform, which is due to launch across a range of Nokia smartphones in the first half of 2007. In the document is a list of publishers which it claims are working on content for the platform, and which surprisingly includes Sony. The document also gives some details about the distribution channels and development kits. (To find out more, click here...)
The ability to stream your own personal media content from a base station to a remote device is now coming to Symbian OS through the SlingMedia Player. Allowing you access to your set top TV cable box no matter where you are in the world, it will do wonders for the mobile executive looking for the latest episode of Battlestart Galactica, although the technology is clearly leapfrogging the legal issues in a number of territories.
Today at the Symbian Smartphone Show Nokia officially announed the availability of its new theme creation tool Carbide.ui. The tool allows for the easy creation of themes and other customisation elements for Nokia smartphones. The tool can be downloaded from the Forum Nokia website.
Symbian's developer website, Symbian Developer Network, has been relaunched to coincide with next week's Symbian Smartphone Show. The revamped site now includes web based discussion forums, a wiki, reorganised content and a clearer navigation system.
Nokia and Orb Networks announced on Tuesday that the Orb MyCasting service would be integrated in the Nokia N80 Internet Edition out of the box (starting in the US market). Orb allows you to view images and other multimedia stored on your home computer from your mobile anywhere in the world.
As predicted in AAS's review of the 5500, Nokia has announced a music edition of the phone. It's got a copper/black/orange colour scheme and is exactly the same hardware and sales package as the 5500 (headphone adapter with music controls, headphones, clip-on phone holder) but it includes a 512mb microSD memory card (which seems rather small, the 5500 can officially use up to 1gb and unofficially up to 2gb) and a bicycle phone holder. You can see official pictures of it here.
Steve takes a listen to ALON MP3 Dictaphone, to find how the addition of a record function benefits the end user and wannabe podcaster, in this audio application. Rough around the edges it may be, but it is a workable solution to recording better audio on your smartphone.
Nokia have announced an updated version of Python for S60. New in version 1.3.11 are keycapture and topwindow modules, support for SVG images (3rd Edition only) and support for both S60 2nd Edition and S60 3rd Edition in one release.
Shooting professional-looking video on the Nokia N93 isn't as simple as it looks. Over on 3-Lib, Steve Litchfield has prepared the definitive guide on what to do and what not to do in shooting your mini-masterpieces.
