Diggnation, one of the most popular videocasts on the net right now, is something I used to watch. I can’t pin point the exact date and time I grew discontent with it, but I think it happened shortly after the show stopped being shot in Kevin and Alex’s apartments.

When Kevin Rose gave up his ThinkPad for a MacBook Pro, and then a MacBook after that, he just turned in to one of these Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) nuts that I personally can’t stand listening to for more than 30 seconds. Alex Albrecht has always brought the greatly needed balance to the show. He was my favorite of the two since he would often state that he can’t form an opinion about something he knows nothing about.

I respect him for that. Kevin let the success of Digg transform him. I congratulate him for his good fortunes, well done, but he has lost that essence of cool that drew me to him in the first place.

Check out this debate (WARNING: Strong Language):

Direct link to video

Comments for Kevin:

• These concept images came out in October 2006, before the iPhone unveiling. Source: Engadget
• Convergence is something that is bound to happen. It is already happening in Europe and Asia. America is always slow when it comes to telecommunications innovations.
• There are already GPS enabled phones on the market.
• The iPhone isn’t for sale.
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) never said anything this device, only released some concept images of what the future may look like. You should check out Nokia’s youtube channel if you want to be impressed.

I’ve been debating posting this article since I first read it this morning. My main issue is that the author has yet to say one negative thing about the company he loves: Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). He has a lot to say about everyone else, a whole lot, but I’ve yet to see him critique the company that wins his heart. To me, that shows blind faith. Especially since he is defending a phone that doesn’t even exist yet.

I’m the polar opposite of this guy. I realize that there are a lot of people saying good things about Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Why should I join that party? I like pointing out defects because I think that’s the only way a company can grow. I love Nokia, but at the same time I greatly enjoy exposing what companies like Apple, Sony, Motorola (NYSE: MOT), HTC, etc. are doing well. It is beneficial to keep a watchful eye on the competition, and a critical eye on yourself when looking in the mirror.

Without further hesitation, here is the introduction of his piece:

Responding to Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn’t Symbian,
sources from Sweden and Finland offer a revealing look inside Symbian
development and how the OS is regarded at Nokia, and what that means
for development on the iPhone.

One developer writes, “In most regards, Symbian’s reputation as a modern, robust, stable and advanced OS for smartphones is not well deserved. Sure, Symbian works, it has a very long feature list, and it’s probably even the best smartphone OS available today.  But it’s mostly because the competition is pathetic than anything else.

“I have a done several Symbian projects and have a thorough knowledge and low-level understanding of Symbian. And I just hate it. It’s a very bad and uninspiring OS even from a programmers point of view.”

Nokia’s POS/OS

Sources close to Nokia say that Symbian is secretly regarded inside the company–even among high level senior executives–as a "peace-of-shit-OS," explaining that “Finnish people usually have a very coarse language.”

A Symbian developer explains, “Nokia is more or less stuck with Symbian since it doesn’t have the competence nor the time to make a new OS from the ground up. Its only alternative, in practice, is to go Linux, which it is of course experimenting with, but it’s still not an easy path to go.

Read the rest at: Roughly Drafted

There is certainly going to be a little regret in me after I hit the publish button. The only reason I’m doing it is because I know several Symbian developers read this blog, and I would like to hear their opinion.

The "sources" that Roughly Drafted talks about don’t have a name.

Roland says he is waiting on Nokia’s response to this article. To be frank with you Roland, I think Nokia isn’t even going to blink at something that yet another Apple zealot has to say about a phone that hasn’t shipped, all the while insulting every other platform on the market right now.

Little bit of back story to this:

When I found this scoop it was split up amongst 9 videos on youtube. I ripped the flash, converted to avi, and then merged them. For the past hour I’ve been trying to get the audio to properly sync and I can’t quite do it. The video is mostly in sync, but there are some parts that are … not so nice. It is still completely bearable.

You can watch 9 videos, piece by piece, at the source: Mobilsiden

OR you can just check out the video I made below. (Direct link to video)

I am really jealous with the people who had such an amazing opportunity, this is exactly what I want to do for Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Get people on video, put a face to a product, people who usually no one knows about.

Until today the only person I knew who worked at Nokia as a designer was Alastair Curtis. Well let me introduce you to Rachael Sleight, the designer and Marja-Leena Nurmela, the product manager of the Nokia 5500:

Click To Play

"I don’t think that what we have seen so far (from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)) is something that would any way necessitate us changing our thinking when it comes to openness, our software and business approach," Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told a conference call with analysts.

"But the fact that Apple is entering the market, in general, I think will stimulate this market, it’s very clear."

"I think it will be good for the industry and I very much welcome that."

Apple announced its much-anticipated music-playing iPhone earlier this month, to capitalize on the popularity of its iPod digital music players.

Kallasvuo also said he expected Nokia’s Enterprise unit, which makes business-orientated phones, would reach break-even in the first half of this year.

Source: Yahoo

Thanks for the link Greg

I think we can all agree that this is pretty much spot on. I absolutley welcome the competition, and there are at least a dozen things the iPhone does I would love to see the cellular industry adopt.

Part 1 of this post was created a mere 5 days after I started this blog. With very little traffic it got very little attention. Things have been getting better though, and I know of at least 3 Nokia (NYSE: NOK) employees that have subscribed to my RSS feed. This makes me very happy since the entire point of this little blog of mine is to criticize, praise, and inspire Nokia on everything they are doing in both the short and long term, but more importantly have them listen. I’m going to recommend you read part 1, it is short, but it is the foundation of everything I’m going to write below.

iTunes, Steam, XBOX Live. What do those 3 services have in common? They are digital distribution mechanisms for a certain type of content. iTunes does music and movies, Steam does PC games, and XBOX Live is doing a little bit of everything.

Synaptic Package Manager, Maemo Applications Repository, Firefox Add-ons. What do these 3 things have in common? Developers connect to this database so their work can be exposed and easily discovered by users.

I propose Nokia combine a central database model, with a digital distribution mechanism for their S60 platform, and future platforms in general.

Why would you want to do that?

Let us think of the user process for installing applications as it stands today:

Step 1: Identify the operating system your mobile phone uses. This is complicated for most people. I’m a cynic and I frankly have a strong belief that the average user is a little slow compared to the upper echelon of power users that my fellow bloggers, friends, and I are a part of.

Step 2: Find an application using a search engine. A tool is only as smart as the person using it. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is a fantastic, brilliant instrument, but most people can’t use it to its fullest potential to find applications. Trust me, I check my server logs and have seen some query strings that would make you twitch in disbelief.

Step 2.5: I call this step 2.5 since some people might not have to take it. I for one always check to see if the application I’m downloading is compatible with my phone. I have to since my Nokia E61 has a weird screen orientation.

Step 3: Connect your mobile phone to your computer and install your recently discovered application. This involves installing the Nokia PC Suite. A PC application that deserves its own blog post for how much dissatisfaction I have with it.

Now if a user can get up to step 2 in less than 10 minutes then I’ll be impressed. The whole hooking up your phone to your PC procedure is where I see a lot of people giving up.

How would a database solve this?

I am not, I repeat NOT, telling Nokia to go out there and find every single application for S60 and add it to a database. Developers should opt in to the Nokia database much like Firefox add-ons are added by developers.

Take iTunes, or Amazon. Imagine how much of a pain in the ass it would be if every time I wanted to get music I had to go to the artist’s website and grab that album or song. Imagine if every single book I wanted to buy, I had to go straight to the publisher’s website. The inefficiency of that model is too great to comprehend, yet it is what we deal with if we use any of the smart phone platforms out there today.

My favorite features of the Amazon.com experience? User reviews are fantastic in helping me purchase an item, Amazon tells me that users who have purchased the item I’m looking at have also purchased A, B and C, and my favorite of all: one click checkout. There is a community around every little thing they sell, and they make buying things as easy as a mouse click.

Where does the digital distribution model fit in to all of this?

A database is only useful if you can access the data easily right? The Nokia Catalogs on our phones is a baby step in the right direction but imagine if that application could connect to a massive database where every 3rd party developer has loaded their work? I wouldn’t have to find out what OS my phone runs; I wouldn’t have to check if the application I want is compatible with my device. The Nokia Catalogs on steroids I would have on my phone would show me every downloadable application that is compatible with my mobile. Now I don’t even have to connect my phone to my PC!

What about payment?

If I want to buy 5 separate S60 applications, from 5 different developers, I have to enter in my credit card information at 5 places. With a central repository for developers to submit their applications, why not make it easy for them to accept payment as well? Amazon has one click check out, iTunes has your credit card attached to your account, and XBOX Live uses a points system.

What about a website?

Sure having an application that would let you see all the other applications you can install on your device is awesome, but what if you want to browse on the net? Set up a website, where a user logs in, enters in the phone he has, and now he no longer has to worry about device compatibility. He can browse for applications, he can buy them, but best of all … he can queue them! How does that work?

Imagine I see an application I want while browsing the net, I add it to my digital locker, and when I start up my phone it tells me I have applications waiting to be downloaded! No need to connect my phone to my computer, useful since I could browse and pay online and immediately have my applications waiting for me to download them whenever I choose to look at my mobile.

As a user I can also leave feedback and read what others have to say. Recreate that Amazon expierance.

Aren’t sites like Handango, All About Symbian, and My-Symbian doing a good enough job?

No they aren’t. First of all you automatically make the assumption that everyone who purchases an S60 device knows about one of the 3 sites I listed above. Next you have to consider the fact that not every single application is covered across those 3 sites. There are always some obscure little applications that only live in a small crevice on the net.

Did you understand everything? Summary:

Nokia makes a database that will be populated by developers. This database would connect to a website that allows for users to review, recommend, and interact with each application. Nokia would also make an application that should be included on every future S60 phone, and available as a download to current S60 users, that would let you access this massive database from the palm (NSDQ: PALM) of your hand. Nokia Catalogs on steroids. Let developers use Nokia as the middle man for transactions so the user doesn’t have to deal with different vendors all asking for that long string of digits you call a credit card.

I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest for a long time, and this weekend I finally got a chance to! I’m very interested in reading what you guys have to say about this, and what Tommi has to say as well since he is in the position to pitch this internally.

Recently we’ve got LG K920 for testing; this is one of the first 5MP camera GSM phones available on the market. We’ve decided that it’s a good idea to test it against one of the best currently available 3MP camera phones, and also great rivals – Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) K800 and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N73.

Source: GSM Arena

Let me spoil the ending for you:

As we expected, in almost all of the test LG K920 showed better ability to resolve detail than it’s 3 megapixel rivals. No surprises here. It also showed amazing macro capabilities and better dynamic range. What stops us from highly recommending it is the really slow performance and the yellowish tint on auto white balance outdoors. As for the Sony Ericsson K800 and Nokia N73 – they are equally good photo devices, but tuned differently. It’s just a matter of preference – if you like your photos with more "wow" factor and never plan to edit them later, then your safe bet is Nokia N73. Otherwise, if you want your photos as accurate as possible and preserving as much detail for further editing, then you should go with Sony Ericsson K800.

I don’t know about you guys but I never use post processing tools like Adobe’s Photoshop. I’ll use Irfanview for image resizing and cropping, but that’s about it.

What I want to see phone makers strive for is extremely fast application launching. I want to hit the camera button, autofocus, and take a picture in less than 3 seconds.

If you’re familiar with our Future Watch site, you probably already know EA Mobile and Gameloft have committed to support the next generation of N-Gage. Today we can give you a few more details about these efforts.

We expect EA Mobile and Gameloft to bring a number of top-selling, award winning titles to our platform between our launch in September and the end of 2007. They aren’t the only ones, as throughout the year we will continue to make exciting announcements of other leading publishers adding their titles to our games catalogue.

By early 2008, we expect to have some of the biggest franchises and hottest mobile games included in the N-Gage experience.

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

Source: Future Watch

Staying tuned indeed, I am highly curious to see how/if this takes off.

This GPS demo makes me want to find out how much the MSRP of the N800 would’ve changed if it had a GPS chip built in. Something to think about for the next version of the internet tablet:

Direct link to video

Source: atmaspheric | endeavors

Use RSS? If you’re not using Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Reader then there is something wrong with you! I thought I was pretty insane with 145 feeds, but Jon has around 700+

Direct link to video

Source: atmaspheric | endeavors

Coming in at a shade under 8 minutes, this video pretty much sums up the N95 very well. Well done Rafe, thanks for the vid, and it was fantastic meeting you at CES!

Direct link to video

Source: All About Symbian

Abaxia’s smart barcode reader application MobileTag, will feature in the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N70 Black in France. The MobileTag application, which has been customised for a major Telecom group, will offer N70 Black users fast and direct access to huge libraries of content that is continually and automatically updated, including online services such as Wap or Web portals, simply by taking a picture of a Tag.

MobileTag is an embedded application that enables camera-phones to read and decipher data matrix prints (Tags) which appear as a small square symbol that can be inserted into any text on a paper document, on television, or any kind of advertisement. In addition to faster access to mobile internet sites and SMS services, Nokia N70 Black users will also be able to manage their mobile phone contacts more easily with MobileTag. Using the N70’s 2 Megapixel camera, users simply have to take a photo of a tagged business card and all of the contact data for the cardholder will be automatically be entered on the phone’s address book. Read the full article »