March 30th, 2009 | Posted in Comms, Mobile, Social | 
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At last, smartphones running the Nokia-led Symbian S60 OS have a native Twitter application. And a very slick one at that.
Gravity is supported on phones running S60 version 3, including my own Nokia E71, as well as the latest touch-friendly S60 version 5, which powers the Nokia 5800 (aka the Tube) and the upcoming N97.
The app supports a host of features, including…
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March 26th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | View Comments
Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a huge fan of Nokia’s QWERTY-touting E71 and currently use the device as my primary smartphone, along with testing a whole bunch of new handsets. That said, I’m as fickle as the next geek, and ever since Nokia announced the upcoming E75, which also features a full QWERTY keyboard but in a very different form factor to the E71, I’ve been eying it up as a potential replacement. Earlier this week I scored a pre-production unit (on loan only) and so rather than waiting to do a full review I thought I’d post my first hands-on impressions and a few photos to go with it.
March 12th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | Comments Off
Vodafone, which currently operates music download stores in over 20 countries, is to become the latest company to jump on the DRM-free bandwagon, announcing this week that it will soon be transitioning its music catalog away from the copy-protected WMA format to standard MP3s. Additionally, customers will be able to covert their existing Vodafone purchases to DRM-free versions at no extra charge, unlike Apple’s current iTunes arrangement where users wishing to ‘upgrade’ are effectively asked to pay twice.
That’s the good news as far as Vodafone is concerned. The bad: only three of the four major record labels are on board – Universal Music Group, Sony Music and EMI – with Warner, for now at least, refusing to join in the fun, and the whole DRM-free deal only applies to a la carte downloads not Vodafone’s MusicStation all-you-can eat subscription service.
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March 11th, 2009 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | Comments Off
Perhaps to the disdain of mobile carriers, Nokia continues to ramp up its own music offering. Three new music-focused handsets were announced today, along with expansion of the company’s own music download store and all-you-can-eat ‘Comes With Music’ subscription-based offering.
Of the three new handsets, the most interesting is the higher end XpressMusic 5730 (available Q3, €280), which is Nokia’s first music phone to feature a full (slide out) QWERTY keyboard, and just like the 5800, runs the company’s Symbian S60 smartphone OS. The 5730 is being pitched as both a music-centric and messaging – think email, IM and social networking – device, featuring a redesigned home screen that gives shortcut access to the phone’s music library, and the socially-aware ‘contacts’ bar, which is able to pull in the latest communication and RSS feeds from up to 20 of a user’s most important contacts.
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March 5th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
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No sooner do I get my hands on Nokia’s N85 smartphone, and the Finnish handset maker announces its successor – the N86. However, since the two devices share so much in common – the most noticeable ‘upgrade’ being the N86’s 8 megapixel camera and improved optics – I thought I’d share five things that I really like about the Nokia N85.
February 27th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | View Comments
It’s always interesting to see the politics of business play out through leaks in the media, and I suspect that in the case of Nokia and its mobile carrier “partners” we haven’t seen the last of it. The Finnish handset maker’s recent announcement of a tie up with Skype has, predictably, rankled two carriers in the UK, reports Mobile Today.
See also: Nokia announces online music store – takes aim at Apple and mobile carriers
Both Orange and O2 are unhappy that a Skype client will be bundled with Nokia’s upcoming N97 and are threatening to boycott the device and the company’s future Skype-enabled phones, for fear that including the application will further reduce their role to that of being a “dumb pipe”. According to Mobile Today’s source:
“This is another example of them trying to build an ecosystem that is all about Nokia and reduces the operator to a dumb pipe. Some people like 3 may be in a position where it could make sense to accept that. But if you spend upwards of £40m per year building your brand, you don’t want to be just a dumb pipe do you?
Nokia have tried several ways to own the customer over the years and operators have had to say no.”
Owning the customer, of course, is something that Apple has managed to achieve, and which 02 seems to have accepted in return for iPhone exclusivity here in the UK. Nokia, with its aggressive move into providing various web services (music subscriptions, maps, email, IM and social networking) is also trying to have a more direct relationship with the customer, presumably hoping that said services will help lock them into a continuous cycle of Nokia handset upgrades. At the same time, both companies, like any handset maker, need the carriers to stay on side so that they’ll continue to subsidize and market their wares. That seems like a conflict of interest if there ever was one, and I can’t see the issue being resolved any time soon.
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February 17th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
This week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona has seen a flurry of handset announcements boasting, amongst other features, more megapixels, support for HD video, OLED screens and touchscreen UIs. Here’s five handsets that caught my eye.
Samsung Omnia HD
Not content with competing on megapixels alone, the Omnia HD, as the name suggests, is the first smartphone to both record and playback High Definition video. And that’s proper High Def (720p) unlike the slightly misleadingly named Touch HD from HTC. However, there’s much, much more to like about the Omnia HD, not least its 3.7″ AM OLED touch screen, which if the screen on Nokia’s N85 is anything to go by (I have one on loan right now), will be absolutely stunning. The device also has full DLNA certification, meaning that it’s possible to share media shot or stored on the handset with other UPnP AV devices, such as a PlayStation 3 connected to a High Definition TV.
OS-wise, the Omnia HD uses the latest Symbian OS and the touch-friendly version of S60, although Samsung have customized the home screen quite a bit, including various widgets as first seen on the Tocco.
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February 16th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
MySpace and Facebook are cited as early partners
Apple may not have a physical presence at this week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, but the company’s influence can be seen everywhere. Not least in Nokia’s newly announced third-party application store.
The Ovi Store will offer “a range of content including applications, games, videos, widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalised content”, and will be available on both S60 and Series 40 devices. The first handset to ship with the store pre-installed will be the recently announced Nokia N97, which is set to launch by June. Sensibly, Nokia will also make the Ovi Store available to existing S60 and Series 40 handsets through a simple download in May. Revenue from paid-for apps will be split 70/30 in the developer’s favor, exactly the same deal offered by the iPhone’s App Store. All very Apple-esqe, so far.
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February 12th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Social | Comments Off
Nokia is in protracted talks with Facebook about ways to further integrate the hugely popular social networking site into select handsets, reports WSJ. Although any partnership deal has yet to be struck, and may never be, according to the article, citing “a person familiar with the talks”.
An obvious feature that’s being explored is deeper integration of Facebook user profiles and contact info into the phones address book, similar to the INQ1 and the yet-to-be released Palm Pre. “When users looked up a contact, they could see whether their Facebook friends were logged on, send them messages and post comments on their profile pages.”
A potential stumbling block, however, is Nokia’s concern over how much mobile-specific user data Facebook would get their hands on. “Nokia doesn’t want the service to provide Facebook with an avenue to compile data about cellphone users, such as their Web browsing or purchasing habits…”
February 5th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Social | View Comments
If the next frontier is mobile, a key battle ground is going to be location-based services. And, drilling down further, location-based social networking, such as the ability to share your current location with friends. Yesterday, Google went head-to-head with Nokia and a plethora of startups with such an application. Called Latitude, the Google Map-powered software enables users to keep track of where their friends are and what they’re up to. Sort of like Twitter, IM and GPS rolled into one.
If that sounds a lot like Nokia’s Friend View and, more broadly, the handset maker’s social location strategy (SoLo), that’s because it is. But there’s one significant difference: despite investing heavily in its own mobile operating system, Google Latitude has launched simultaneously on multiple mobile platforms: Blackberry, S60, Windows Mobile, and Google’s own Android. iPhone support should also arrive soon, says the company. In comparison, like other Nokia web services, Friend View is only available on S60 and targeted solely at Nokia’s own cell phones.
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January 29th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
If 2008 was the year of the Netbook, is it too late for Nokia to jump on the bandwagon? Mikey Bee of NokNok.tv doesn’t thing so, noting that while the company talked up its recently announced N97 smartphone for its Netbook-like qualities (despite featuring a comparatively small 3.5 inch screen), it also fazed out the WiMAX version of its rather long in the tooth N810 Internet Tablet, perhaps paving the way for a new Nokia device designed primarily for surfing the web.
See also: Hands-on: Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet
How might a Nokia ‘Netbook’ shape up? Were the company to release such a device, I’d expect it to follow many of the design lines of its existing Internet Tablet range, powered by the Linux-based Maemo OS but featuring a larger screen (topping out at 7 inches). Rather than a slide out keyboard, I think a more traditional clam shell design should be incorporated, a major part of the appeal of existing Netbooks (as apposed to less popular tablet PCs or UMPCs). Software-wise, the device would tie into all of the company’s web services, including Share on Ovi, along with support for third-party social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, which could easily be added through widgets on the home screen, just like the existing N810 User Interface and that used on the upcoming N97.
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January 15th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments Off
Pandora CTO Tom Conrad put it best: “I can’t think of much that’s harder in the world than building a modern, mobile operating system and integrating it with a fantastic piece of hardware”, he tells Palm Info Center.
“We see companies take a swing and miss at this time after time – I really think Palm has hit a home run on this one.”
And Conrad should know.
Not only has his company ported its music streaming and discovery service to over 40 different handsets, “everything from J2ME and Windows Mobile to the iPhone”, but Pandora was also chosen by Palm to get an early hands-on peak at the webOS and Pre and begin bringing their app over to the company’s new platform.
At the same time, Conrad rightfully reminds us that Palm is still very much the underdog. Of course, underdogs should rarely be underestimated.
On that note, who should have the most to fear from Palm’s “New-ness”?
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