With the Ovi Maps (v3.04) exploring new places and getting to your destination is easier and faster than ever. This new Beta release is all about performance improvement.
Get easily to destinations with Drive & Walk, FREE voice guided car and pedestrian navigation for over 70 countries. Preload maps for entire countries on your Nokia GPS phone with Map Loader and enjoy using all these features and services also offline.
Online you can check Weather forecasts & Events around your location or any other in the world. Find thousands of listings for sights, restaurants, hotels, shops, nightlife and more with free travel content by Lonely Planet and Michelin, available for over 1000 destinations. You can even book a hotel room via HRS Hotels, currently available in Germany and Finland, coming to more countries soon.
Share your location with friends on Facebook and let them know what you are up to, right from Ovi Maps. Your status update, photo and location appear on your Facebook page. Your location can be viewed on the map within the Ovi Maps Facebook Application.
Although Symbian holds the lead at 47%, both RIM and Apple are making serious inroads in the worldwide smartphone market share. According the latest figures produced by Gartner, an information technology research firm, both Symbian and Nokia were still in a solid first place of the world’s smartphone market, both RIM and Apple are becoming a serious threat to each.
In a recently published study, Nokia has maintained an overall 36.4% of the worldwide smartphone market share, but saw a 2.2% loss last year. Symbian also dominated with a 52.4% market share, but those are worldwide figures and do not reflect the United States Market.
In the U.S.A., a recent Comscore survey shows both RIM and Apple are much larger than Symbian. With the increase of mobile web traffic, both Apple and Android are leading the pack. What all the other Operating Systems and Manufactures need to be concerned with is Google’s Android. According to recent reports, Android has been selling 60,000 handsets a month, and both Verizon and AT&T plan to release several devices this year.
Nokia 5530 Red is a sleek phone with a vibrant touch screen display. It offers you an array of web browsing features. This is a phone with excellent music capabilities.
The various specifications of Nokia 5530 Red are as follows:
Nokia 5530 Red
The Nokia 5530 Red comes with an impressive 2.9 inch TFT touch screen that gives a 16 million colour display. It weighs 107 grams and is just 13 mm thick.
The Nokia 5530 Red comes with a 70 MB storage and 128 MB of SDRAM. MicroSD memory cards are supported externally up to 4 GB.
The 1000 MaH LiIon battery gives you a stand by of 336 hours or 4.54 hrs talk time. If you are using a music player then the stand by time comes down by 27 hrs.
The Nokia 5530 comes with a 3.15 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens supporting auto focus and LED flash. Auto focus lets you have well focused images.
The videos can also be filmed at 15 frames per minute. The phone comes with a stereo FM radio that fully supports RDS. The media player offers and exceptional array of formats to playback your audio and video files.
You can also plug your phone to TV to view your videos.
The Nokia 5530 Pink is supported by voice commands and dials. And the document viewer lets you view MS word, excel, power point and Adobe PDF files. The built in browser supports web browsing through HTML & XHTML along with supporting RSS feeds.
It has a quick WiFi technology that enables you to connect to the internet from any hotspot or WLAN. You can also use Bluetooth and USB for data transfers.
Newsfactor: Apple, Inc.'s patent complaint against Nokia will be reviewed by the U.S. International Trade Commission, which is already reviewing Nokia's complaint against Apple. The mobile-phone makers are locked in an escalating battle for mobile-phone licensing. Beyond Apple and Nokia, Kodak has also filed complaints against Apple and Research In Motion.Apple is one step closer to potentially taking a bite out of Nokia's U.S. market share. The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday said it will review the iPhone maker's complaint against the Finland-based mobile-phone giant. The ITC is also reviewing a similar complaint from Nokia against Apple. Newsfactor
Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona will be the place where operators, vendors, and application developers converge to review key milestones achieved, and outline future RCS strategies. A range of different activities are planned across the four days of Mobile World Congress to demonstrate progress made in key initiatives:
App Garage
The App Garage, located on Stand 7APG in Hall 7, is the central point for the GSMA’s app-related programmes and initiatives. It’s a great place to mingle with industry peers to explore new business and service opportunities. App Garage features a number of RCS initiatives:
RCS Dev Challenge: Here we will be showcasing the winners and a selection of entries from the GSMA’s recent developer contest. The following developers have been shortlisted in each category:
Ecrio, Neusoft Mobile Solutions and Nokia have been shortlisted for Best RCS Client (Mobile Solution).
Devstrom, Ecrio and Movial Applications Oy have been shortlisted for Best RCS Client (PC Solution).
Colibria, Genaker and Hewlett-Packard have been shortlisted for Best RCS Innovation.
Comneon GmbH has been awarded a Judge’s Special Mention.
RCS Project Team: Meet with fellow operators to learn about the recent pre-commercial trials, and discuss how to set up interoperable trials in your country.
App Garage Seminar Theatre: Stop by each day for demonstrations and 30 minute master class presentations from RCS operators, infrastructure providers and DevChallenge entrants.
The Rich Communication Suite Seminar
Commencing at 13:30 on Wednesday 17th February in the main Seminar Theatre, Stand 7SEM, Hall 7
RCS lets operators leverage a key asset – a user’s presence-enabled address phone book – for business growth. C-Level operators and RCS industry representatives will share their reasons for investing in RCS, provide pre-commercial pilot updates, and outline future developments.
Seating is on a first come first served basis.
Explore the RCS Ecosystem
A range of mobile infrastructure and solutions providers will be showcasing RCS deployments on their own stands during Mobile World Congress. Please ensure you visit the following members of the RCS community:
Acme Packet , the leader in session border control, located in Suite AV80, will be providing live demonstrations of videoshare and mediacast with partner Aylus Networks. Further RCS solution details are available at http://www.acmepacket.com/sipo3g
Alcatel-Lucent will feature RCS content in two locations: Stand 7D61 in Hall 7 and stand 8A147 in Hall 8. Live demonstrations will be provided on all 4 days. Further details are available fromhttp://www.alcatel-lucent.com/features/rich_communication/comm_no_barriers.html
Aylus Networks™ ( http://www.aylus.com/), invites you to discover how our mobile broadband solutions can help manage your wireless network bandwidth explosion and offer new session-based multimedia services, including RCS content sharing , in meeting room, 4.6HS07
Ericsson will be showing the latest version of their RCS solution in Hall 6. This live demo delivers the core features of GSMA RCS, and shows how RCS can become a central element in enabling consumers to share experiences and interact with Social Networks. For more details please visithttp://www.ericsson.com/rcs
Gemalto, located on Stand 8A102, will demonstrate its new Mobile Broadband PC client that will gather all RCS functionality expected by the operators, including VoIP, send SMS, send MMS, IM, video call, and document sharing.
Nokia Siemens Networks will be presenting RCS products and services from Stand 8C01 in Hall 8. Come and see how to transform CSPs from service providers into experience providers with RCS. Additional information is available at http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/rcs
Solaiemes (Hall 7, pod IZ12) introduce their RCSGW and RCS TV widget. Attract developers since the early launch, with your choice of servers and clients. Minimum investment, low risk to test different business models. More info at http://tinyurl.com/sol-rcsgw
Nokia are planuri mari pentru 2010, dar a preferat să ia o poziţie mai ferită de văzul mass-mediei. La MWC nu a prezentat niciun telefon, însă oficialii Qualcomm (companie cu care finlandezii au un parteneriat) au rupt tăcerea şi au declarat că Nokia va lansa până la sfârşitul anului un smartphone cu Symbian, motorizat de un procesor Snapdragon dintr-o nouă generaţie. Acesta va avea o frecvenţă de 1.3 GHz sau 1.5 GHz.
Dacă zvonurile se adeveresc, smartphone-ul Nokia ar urma sa concureze cu HTC Scorpion, dispozitiv înzestrat cu un procesor Snapdragon tactat la 1.5 GHz şi sistem de operare Android
Cat o sa castige oare Nokia din chestia asta daca inca nu are un OS decent? Nu se stie…dar cert este că va fi un război interesant între cei trei muschetari: Apple, Google şi Microsoft. Să aibe Nokia asul in maneca în toată povestea asta? Vom vedea…
Nokia, the world’s biggest maker of mobile handsets, said on Monday it would merge its Linux Maemo software platform, used in its flagship N900 phone, with Intel’s Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-sourced software, to create a new platform, MeeGo.
“They have understood the only way to beat Microsoft, Google and Apple is to do it through scale — get the platform to more devices,” said John Strand, owner and head of Strand Consult after the announcements at the Mobile World Congress fair.
“However, they have not realized it’s not about getting to many platforms, it’s about making something the consumer likes. The bees don’t go for the biggest garden, they go for the most beautiful flowers,” Strand said.
The cellphone industry is increasingly focusing on smartphones, devices with computer-like capabilities that have fatter margins than ordinary phones, whose sales may overtake those of other phones as early as this year.
LUCKY SEVEN ?
Microsoft’s long-awaited revamp of its mobile software follows a lukewarm reception for Windows Mobile 6.5 in October, which most analysts viewed as a poor competitor.
It has been losing the battle for advanced phone users over the past few years, taking just 8.8 percent of the global smartphone systems market last year, according to technology analysis firm Canalys, down from 13.9 percent the year before.
“We hope seven’s our lucky number,” Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told a news conference.
In the launch of Windows Phone 7 Microsoft has put an emphasis on appealing to everyday users as well as its core business market.
Phone 7 handsets to be made by companies including HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, will feature touch screens with quick access to social networking functions from Facebook, music and video through Microsoft’s Zune software and games linked to its Xbox system.
Microsoft said its main network carrier partners are AT&T and France Telecom’s Orange and the new phones will be in stores by the holiday season at the end of the year.
“We’re really trying to go after the life market. People work, they live, and I think on their phone they don’t make a big distinction, so we need to support all aspects of somebody’s life,” Ballmer told Reuters Television in an interview.
However handset makers such as HTC, Samsung and Motorola are also turning to Google’s Android operating software, which is not only free but attracting a fast-growing developer community and already has 4.7 percent of the market.
Microsoft is the only major phone software maker to charge a license fee to handset makers.
Ballmer told Reuters Television he had no plans to change the company’s charging policy.
“Windows Phone 7 is a massive bet by Microsoft to try and get themselves back in the game. They’re going to throw a lot of money at it to reassert themselves in the sector,” said Ben Wood, director of UK-based telecoms research firm CCS Insight.
NOKIA, INTEL
Meanwhile the news from Intel and Nokia came as more of a surprise to the industry.
Nokia only rolled out its first Maemo phone — the result of a five-year development project — three months ago, with analysts seeing Maemo boosting the firm’s chances of succeeding in the higher end of the market.
The market for software platforms on cellphones is led by Nokia’s Symbian, but it has lost much ground lately to Apple, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion and to Google.
Nokia said it was still committed to using Symbian in most of its smartphones, but would use the new MeeGo in the most advanced models.
The software deal announced on Monday is also set to boost Intel’s chances of getting its chips into the cellphones of the Finnish company, which controls around 40 percent of the global phone market.
“We believe the partnership … will result in significant sales volumes for Intel,” said CCS Insight analyst John Jackson.
Nokia’s shares closed up 0.3 percent at 9.49 euros. The DJ Stoxx European technology sector index fell 0.3 pct.
LINUX
Google said it was relaxed about the development.
“Google benefits when anyone produces a great phone that enables the Web experience,” Vic Gundotra, who leads Google’s mobile engineering, told reporters. “If Intel and Nokia can deliver innovation we think that’s very exciting.”
Network operators have wanted a smaller number of operating systems, as supporting them is timely and costly, but the number has in recent years only increased.
Samsung, the world’s second-biggest handset maker, joined the party on Sunday by unveiling its first phone to use its own new operating system, called ‘bada’.
But now the open-source computer operating system Linux is starting to win traction, with Google using Linux for its Android platform, and Nokia rolling out its top-of-the-range model N900 using Linux Maemo.
“There has been a step change for Linux in mobile,” Morgan Gillis, head of the wireless Linux system user foundation LiMo, said in an interview. “No other operating system now matches the vendor coverage of Linux.
You get the sense that things are different at this year’s Mobile World Congress. More at stake, more for the take. Acknowledgment that incremental will not do against the duopoly of Apple/Android. Microsoft reinvents Windows Mobile. Motorola announces (though separate from MWC) the spinoff of handset+set top box. Huge players, whom you might not have expected to getting together, got together. Nokia and Intel, vulnerable industry incumbents, teaming up, Nokia having lost traction with its outdated Symbian and unproven Maemo, Intel having done well with Atom in larger devices but struggling to contend with say Snapdragon/OMAP/Tegra in smartphones.
But the most interesting might be the announcement of Wholesale Applications Community, an agreement between 24 large industry players, consisting mostly of mobile operators but also few handset majors (LG, Samsung, SE) who have neither wholeheartedly committed to Android nor developed a alternative, to create a standard for applications that will run on different OSes. Undoubtedly a move to turn the very tides that have turned against operators, control having shifted and continuing to shift toward disruptive handset manufacturers and search/ad networks (i.e. Apple, Google, and the like), and one that reflects how dire the situation is for operators, considering:
Data important as ever in US/WEU as voice revenues continue to decrease and messaging flattens out, making applications and search revenues critical
Operators are increasingly pushed to the margins in apps, where fees made on the data transfer (an operator sweet spot) have traditionally made up half to two-thirds of revenue, but expectation is that this drops quickly in the next few years, making way for content premiums and advertising revenues. I have some data from Strategy Analytics that shows data transfer dropping 10 percent every 4-5 years. It’s pretty steep.
In search, I doubt the picture is any different. And while I don’t have data, I’d feel comfortable with putting my money on search engines and ad networks as key beneficiaries.
Which makes WAC big news. Difficult to follow through given the number of members and platforms this new standard needs to meet and the experience Adobe currently faces with Flash, but my guess is that it shouldn’t be as bad once they anchor Android as early adopter, which doesn’t seem inconceivable considering 10 of the 24 members are also part of the Open Handset Alliance.
Celebrating the launch of the Nokia Comes With Music 5800 in chrome on T-Mobile, JLS performed live and exclusively yesterday (February 13th) for 3000 invited fans at the Hammersmith Apollo.
Watched by celebrities including Katie Price and Alex Reid, Angus Deaton, Jamelia, Keisha Buchanan, Lemar and Anthony Worrell-Thompson, the triple- BRIT nominated band played a full 90 minute set, including their smash hits ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Everybody in Love’.
The only matinee performance during their current sell-out tour, tickets to the gig were given to those who purchased Nokia Comes With Music 5800 in chrome on T-Mobile, with hundreds of others also won through competitions spanning radio, print and online.
Nokia Comes With Music is an ‘all you can eat’ music service. Discover, download and enjoy up to six million tracks for free – and they’re yours to keep forever.
JLS
Hmmmm singer Lemar was in the house. Will there soon be a fifth member?
Nokia Beta Labs has introduced a new application to the world called Nokia Feel. The application tries to assist you by estimating your current emaotional state. The app tries to figure out your moods and matches them to the phone.
As a Nokia statement puts it:
Nokia Feel helps you discover what you can do with your device in a more spontaneous way. When you tell it how you feel, the application suggests a few things you could do. In this way, discovering the capabilities of your device can be emotional, surprising, and fun. When you open the application you can select how you feel – are you feeling Energetic, Lucky, Lonely, Happy, Hungry, Bored, Lost, Caring or Creative? And when you have told it how you feel, the application suggests a few things you could do.
We are not exactly sure which phones this app will hit but the video above does show it using the N97, so we presume that this will be for Symbian S60 touchscreen handsets, but we will await word from Nokia to be sure.
Your search for the sophisticated and fashionable handset ends with the Nokia X6 Blue. It is the trendiest 3G handset available in marvellous casing integrated the varied user friendly features.
The specification at a glance
Nokia X6 Blue
Nokia X6 Blue has got a sleek casing available in white or black colour with the modish red accent s. The casing weighs 122 grams which includes the weight of its battery, comprising the overall dimensions of 1.38cms/5.1cms/11.1cms in length, width and height respectively.
Nokia X6 Blue provides its users the most amazing touch screen user interface operating on the Symbian 9.4 operating system (S60 fifth edition software) with the high resolution display of 640 pixels by 360 pixels. The screen measures around 3.2 inches diagonally, having 16.7 high colour displays.
The inbuilt memory possesses the storage capacity of 32 gigabytes of internal memory. The handset is embedded with a GPS navigation feature based on Ovi maps application facilitating exact directions to destinations. The handset offers an astounding 420 hrs of 3G standby time or eight and half hrs of GSM talk time.
The EDGE technology and HSCSD facilitates high speed transfer rates for transferring data to other devices. It works on the quad band GSM network. With the embedded USB PORT and Blue Tooth, the data transfer becomes much easier and faster.
With Nokia X6 blue the user can enjoy the easy connectivity to web. The WLAN and Wi-Fi technology allows easy access to web via wireless WLAN and hotspot. The mobile phone holds HTML, WML and XHTML internet browsers.
Nokia X6 Blue offers amazing pictures and videos with the 5 mega pixel inbuilt camera allowing the video recording up to 30 frames per second which is available in four times digital zoom. The videos can be played in MPEG format up to 30 frames per second. The entertainment feature constitutes fm radio and an inbuilt music player along with variety of preloaded games including D Mix Tour, Spore and Asphalt 4 games.
The Nokia Mobile Deals are available with gift : Free Sony PSP Deals.
Check out the video below of the worlds biggest sign post.
Finnish company Nokia erected the sign last month in London. The sign invites passers by to text a number with the name of a place somewhere in the world. The signpost would then display the name of said place and move around so that it pointed in the correct direction.
The World’s Biggest Signpost from adghost on Vimeo.
Are you still surviving with your many years old mobile phone or possessing any 3G enabled smart mobile phone like Nokia N900? Whatever your reply is but the said phone is a groundbreaking device embedded with world class features and functionalities.
Glorious Display and Design
Nokia N900
Nokia has designed the Nokia N900 with a magnificent 3.5 inches TFT resistive touchscreen with 800 x 480 pixels resolution and 16 Million colors viewing quality. Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate & slide out QWERTY keyboard are extraordinary attributes to be found. The handsome gadget looks royal in its black colored casing as it has 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm physical details and 181 grams weight.
Brilliant Offerings
This unique phone affirms lots of amazing messaging services such as SMS, MMS, Push Email (SMTP, IMAP4 & POP3), Email with Attachments & Instant Messaging. Utilizing Arm Cortex A8 600 MHz processor and Maemo 5 operating system, the gadget works very fast and performs like your PC.
From connectivity point of view, Nokia N900 utilises 3G HSDPA, HSUPA, Bluetooth® with A2DP, Micro USB, GPRS, EDGE & WLAN Wi-Fi techniques. Besides these, web browsing options like WAP XHTML, HTML, Maemo Browser and RSS Feeds will win the heart of Internet savvy users.
5 MP camera will impress the users as it is capable enough to resolve pictures at 2576 x 1936 pixels resolution with Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, Dual LED flash, video light Geo-tagging and much more. Not only pictures but also you can record top quality videos too. And second VGA camera is attached there for video calling.
Users need not to check out their storage space time and again as this powerful smartphone is rendered with 32 GB domestic storage space, 256 MB RAM and if you still need more then up to 16GB can be raised via card slot.
Music player (MP3, WMA, WAV & eAAC+) is also of high quality that will fill you full of entertainment. Even it has Stereo FM radio (via third party software); FM transmitter. And MPEG4, WMV, XviD, AVI & Real video files are supported with ease by video player. Apart from Document Viewer, Nokia N900 is also consisted with Skype and GoogleTalk VoIP integration, Adobe Flash Player 9.4, GPS with A-GPS Receiver, Ovi Maps & Digital Compass and many other features.
The Nokia Mobile Deals are available with gift : Free Sony PSP Deals.
Next week, February 15-18th, will be the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There will be a variety of AR related events during the MWC.
AR Showcase
Christine Perey has organized an AR Showcase on Wednesday, February 17th from 5:00-7:00, so AR companies can demonstrate their services and products to customers. Designers will also have a chance to compare and contrast their products versus the competition. The following companies have confirmed their attendance:
AcrossAir
metaio
Layar
LibreGeoSocial
Mobilizy
kooaba
V-Gate
Mobile Acuity
Sequence Point Software
Nokia
Olaworks
Tonchidot
WorkSnug
8motions
Telefonica I&D
You can find the Showcase in the northeast corner of the courtyard. Announcements for the AR showcase can be tweeted to #ar_showcase_mwc.
More information can be found here.
Other Related Events
Navteq Challenge
Sunday, 14.2.2010
Poble Espanyol, City Hall.
Wikitude Drive is an Augmented Reality navigation system. They are one of the 10 finalists at this years Navteq Challenge. http://www.nn4d.com/site/global/market/lbs_challenge/about/emea/home/p_home.jsp
Mobile Premier Award in Innovation
Monday, 15.2., 2010 15:00 to 20:00
Petit Palau of Palau de la Musica
Mobilizy is with Wikitude one of the 20 finalists of the “Mobile Premier Award in Innovation”. http://www.mobilepremierawards.com/
Martin Lechner, CTO Mobilizy, will present.
AR Summit
Wednesday, 17.2. 13:00 to 19:00
Location: to be announced.
Mobilizy CTO Martin Lechner presents a position paper “ARML an Augmented Reality Standard”. ARML is currently being reviewed by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). At 17:00 there will be a Wikitude Showcase presentation.
This first week of February on MyNokiaBlog, we bookend with the Conversations app on the N900, showing you how to get more IM account to the default messenger app as well as the update which allows for facebook chat.
But this week has really been all about Symbian, starting with the long awaited update for the N97. The best thing about the update for me was that it fixed my long term frustration with failed bootup. I’ve got my N97 back on track again!
The Symbian countdown finally finished revealling that Symbian was now finally open soure, 4 months ahead of schedule.
There were a couple of cool apps on show from Nokia Beta Labs: Diagnostics and custom dictionary as well as a notable update for the Ovi Store.
Finally, thanks to all your support, we have reached 1 million views, broke 170,000 views in January and also coincidentally, won a Golden Retrevo award in the Mobile Gadgets Category. We aren’t really a traditional tech/nokia Blog of sorts, just blogging with whatever Nokia story comes of our interest. Thanks so much for reading the randomness on MyNokiaBlog.com ^_^
How to: AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! QQ, GaduGadu, Sametime, Google Talk, Ovi Chat on N900’s inbuilt messaging client January 31, 2010
New Nokia N97 firmware update V21.0.045 and 21.2.045 from Feb 1, 2010, 08:00GMT. February 1, 2010
Freeware: Nokia Custom Dictionary Word List Organizer V0.02(2) for S60 3rd and 5th Edition [Experimental]February 2, 2010
MyNokiaBlog reaches 1 million views, breaks 170,000 views in January and wins a Golden Retrevo Award!February 2, 2010
N97 Failed Boot up/Hard Reset Problem Fixed by new firmware update V21.0.045?! February 2, 2010
Nokia to go to S^3 in Q3 of 2010 and not bother with S^2! February 2, 2010
Symbian (community) using their spare time to make auto 4×4×4 rubics cube solver! February 2, 2010
WiiMote, Duke Nukem 3D and N900 February 3, 2010
Something Big with Symbian Tomorrow? #symbiancountdown at 12 February 3, 2010
Nokia Orion – Touch Screen Gaming Nokia Concept February 3, 2010
World’s number one mobile OS, Symbian becomes fully Open Source [#symbiancountdown] February 4, 2010
New i version of the 6303 classic to be launched February 4, 2010
New App: Diagnostics from Nokia Beta Labs February 4, 2010
Big Push N900 Event at London tonight! [@PushN900 #PushN900] February 4, 2010
N900 free on a £25/month contract – £240 effective price. Unlocked, Unbranded, unlimited internet, plus free case. Best deals for the Nokia N900? February 5, 2010
Video: Tour of FireFox on the N900 February 5, 2010
Updated Ovi Store App on the Nokia N97 Works Great! Accurate Search, more content, improved navigation and stability! February 6, 2010
Facebook Chat for N900’s inbuilt Conversations app. February 6, 2010
The group behind the world’s most popular smartphone operating system – Symbian – is giving away “billions of dollars” worth of code for free.
The Symbian Foundation’s announced that it would make its code open source in 2008 and has now completed the move. It means that any organisation or individual can now use and modify the platform’s underlying source code “for any purpose”. Symbian has shipped in more than 330m mobile phones, the foundation says.
It believes the move will attract new developers to work on the system and help speed up the pace of improvements. “This is the largest open source migration effort ever,” Lee Williams of the Symbian Foundation told BBC News. “It will increase rate of evolution and increase the rate of innovation of the platform.” Ian Fogg, principal analyst at Forrester research, said the move was about Symbian “transitioning from one business model to another” as well as trying to gain “momentum and mindshare” for software that had been overshadowed by the release of Apple’s iPhone and Google Android operating system.
Evolutionary barrier
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia bought the software in 2008 and helped establish the non-profit Symbian Foundation to oversee its development and transition to open source. The foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. The group has now released what it calls the Symbian platform as open source code. This platform unites different elements of the Symbian operating system as well as components – in particular, user interfaces – developed by individual members.
Until now, Symbian’s source code was only open to members of the organisation. It can be downloaded from the foundation’s website from 1400 GMT. Mr Williams said that one of the motivations for the move was to speed up the rate at which the 10-year-old platform evolved. “When we chatted to companies who develop third party applications, we found people would spend up to nine months just trying to navigate the intellectual property,” he said.
“That was really hindering the rate of progress.” Opening up the platform would also improve security, he added.
‘Mind share’
Symbian development is currently dominated by Nokia, but the foundation hoped to reduce the firm’s input to “no more than 50%” by the middle of 2011, said Mr Williams. “We will see a dramatic shift in terms of who is contributing to the platform.” However, said Mr Williams, the foundation would monitor phones using the platform to ensure that they met with minimum standards. Despite being the world’s most popular smart phone operating system, Symbian has been losing the publicity battle, with Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iPhone dominating recent headlines. “Symbian desperately needs to regain mindshare at the moment,” said Mr Fogg.
“It’s useful for them to say Symbian is now open – Google has done very well out of that.” He also said that the software “may not be as open and free as an outsider might think”. “Almost all of the open source operating systems on mobile phones – Nokia’s Maemo, Google’s Android – typically have proprietary software in them.” For example, Android incorporates Google’s e-mail system Gmail. But Mr Williams denied the move to open source was a marketing move.
“The ideas we are executing ideas came 12-18 months before Android and before the launch of the original iPhone,” Mr Williams told BBC News
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is an affordable music focused Mobile Phones devised with lots of unique features. This gadget is something proves to be a perfect entertainment tool in hand as its music player allows playing MP3, WMA, WAV, RA, AAC & M4A formats and furnished with music features like Album Graphics Display, Music Selection (Album, Artist, Composer & Genre), Playlist, 8 Band Graphic Equaliser, Volume Key, Bass Booster, Stereo Widening, Loudness, Integrated Stereo Speakers etc.
Nokia 5800 Tube
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic boasts 3.2 inches TFT resistive touchscreen with 360 x 640 pixels resolution and offers 16 Million colours. Full & Mini QWERTY Keyboard, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate & Handwriting recognition are exclusively merged on it. Its dimensional details are 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm and weighs 109 grams.
The Document viewer of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic allows opening documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint formats. GPS Navigation with A-GPS support and Nokia Mobiles Maps Applications is there to help the users to find out unseen locations. You can access Internet through WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML browser and RSS feeds. 81 MB built-in memory, 128 MB RAM can be enhanced up to 16 GB by using microSD memory card slot.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is provided with a 3.2 MP camera having lens from Carl Zeiss optics, 3x Digital Zoom, Dual LED Flash, Auto Focus, Video Recording capabilities etc. As well as a video calling camera is there. So far as the connectivity is concerned, provides 3G HSDPA, WLAN Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth & Micro USB technologies.
Since the iPhones debut, we have seen growth quarter after quarter. The last time the iPhone lost market share was in the 4th quarter of 2008 which according to API research, was not a significant drop. Fast forward to the 4th quarter of 2009 when Apple has a record qaurter for iPhone sales growing 18% year of year. The growth however big, was not enough to increase or maintain market share. The iPhone’s growth of 18% was trumped by the smart phone over all market growth of 26%. So what does this mean? It means Jon Rubinstein’s theory that there can be about 5 big players in the smart phone market could be true. Let’s take a quick look at Apple’s competition today when compared to the 4th quarter of 2008.
In 2008 Apple’s biggest competitors were RIM with its Blackberry lineup, Nokia and its s60 devices, Android with the G1, Samsung’s big player was the Instinct, Palm with the Centro and Treo Pro, and Microsoft with Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. Let’s be honest here, Apple didn’t have much competition. Apple’s market share was growing while almost everyone else was having one of their worst quarters ever. Fast forward to the 4th quarter of 2009. Now you have the iPhone 3GS which is basically the same as the 3G in the general consumers mind, however the competition has dramatically changed. What were the iPhones competitors in quarter 4 of 2009? Blackberry with the Bold, Bold 2, Storm 2, Tour, Pearl, Pearl Flip, and Curve, Palm with the Pre, Pixi, and Treo Pro, Android with the Moment, Hero, Eris, Droid, G1, MyTouch, Behold 2, Cliq, and of course all the variations of those same phones outside the U.S., Nokia now with the N97 Mini, N97, N900, E72, and the still famous E71, Microsoft now with Windows Mobile 6.5 and the HD2, TouchPro 2, Snap, Imagio, and Omnia 2. Obviously the competition has changed, companies like Motorola, Palm, and RIM are now growing once again. Apple did not do poorly, make no mistake, in fact they had a record quarter when it comes to iPhone sales. The market is shifting over from feature phones and messaging phones to smart phones. As people begin to use more powerful phones, the players in the smart phone arena will continue to see growth. Once the market is saturated, we will begin to see competition working to take customers from one another. Everyone now has the chance to stake their claim, so we will get to sit back and watch the innovation take place.
Although Symbian holds the lead at 47%, both RIM and Apple are making serious inroads in the worldwide smartphone market share. According the latest figures produced by Gartner, an information technology research firm, both Symbian and Nokia were still in a solid first place of the world’s smartphone market, both RIM and Apple are becoming a serious threat to each.
In a recently published study, Nokia has maintained an overall 36.4% of the worldwide smartphone market share, but saw a 2.2% loss last year. Symbian also dominated with a 52.4% market share, but those are worldwide figures and do not reflect the United States Market.
In the U.S.A., a recent Comscore survey shows both RIM and Apple are much larger than Symbian. With the increase of mobile web traffic, both Apple and Android are leading the pack. What all the other Operating Systems and Manufactures need to be concerned with is Google’s Android. According to recent reports, Android has been selling 60,000 handsets a month, and both Verizon and AT&T plan to release several devices this year.
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This first week of February on MyNokiaBlog, we bookend with the Conversations app on the N900, showing you how to get more IM account to the default messenger app as well as the update which allows for facebook chat.
