Sygic has extended its Mobile Maps application coverage to include the Maemo 5 OS – adding to the existing iPhone, Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile support.

All the current regional versions of the app for other operating systems are in the progress of being converted for Nokia Maemo:

• Australia & New Zealand
• South East Asia (incl. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia)?Brazil
• Colombia
• North America (incl. USA, Canada & Mexico)
• Europe
• UK & Ireland
• Russia?Gulf Countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates)

“We are happy to announce the compatibility of Sygic Mobile Maps with Nokia’s new Maemo 5 OS. Currently we are in the phase of quality assurance performing final tests. We are working hard to launch it for sales by the end of 2009, but we won’t hesitate to make this sooner anytime when ready.” comments Anna Hurbanic, Sygic’s PR Manager.

I’ve tested the Sygic Mobile Maps app on iPhone and it’s a good one – it will be interesting to see how it ports to Nokias high-end device…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) keeps investing in its Ovi brand. Just recently the company has renamed its Nokia Music Player (PC Client) into Nokia Ovi Player.

Aside from the name change, not much is added in the latest version of the application. Windows 7 support is on, there are some minor UI tweaks, as well as a new option in the navigation/filter tabs – “Recent.” Nokia Ovi Player remains the resource hungry application, but it’s a convenient way for managing music library for Nokia device owners.

You can download the new version by opening from “Help” -> “Check for updates now” menu or by going to the Nokia Music website.

[Via: AllAboutSymbian]

Two Hungarian operators, Pannon and T-Mobile (NYSE: DT), are joining the “Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Messaging wave.” Starting from November 1st, all Pannon customers and postpaid T-Mobile customers will be able to access the Nokia’s push e-mail service from select Nokia phones. All leading consumer e-mail solutions are supported by the service — including Nokia’s own Ovi Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail; as well as the major local e-mail services such as Citromail, Indamail and Freemail.

Both operators will allow free 30-day trial period for Nokia Messaging, after which users will be able to continue using the service for a monthly charge that will be added on top of their monthly bill. Supported devices include such Nokia models as the Nokia E52, E66, E72, E71 and N97.

Law.com posted something that probably very few IntoMobile readers care about, but I’ll share it none the less:

In Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s big patent showdown with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) over iPhone technology, it will be Alston & Bird versus Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. Wilmer’s co-managing partner Bill Lee made an appearance for Apple on Tuesday in a stipulation filed in Delaware federal district court.

There may be no lawyer in America more familiar with the technology behind smart phones than Lee. For years, he represented Broadcom (NSDQ: BRCM) in its battles with Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) over phone patents. That litigation ended in April when Qualcomm agreed to pay Broadcom $891 million.

When Nokia filed its suit alleging infringement of ten patents, we noted the conspicuous absence of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges. The firm had been inseparable from Nokia through its global war against Qualcomm, which ended on the steps of Delaware Chancery Court last year. As we reported, Alston & Bird has done quite a bit of litigating for Nokia as well.

The same is true of Wilmer for Apple, though this appears to be the highest-profile case Bill Lee & Co. have taken on for Apple. According to the stipulation both parties agreed to, Apple has until December 14 to respond to Nokia’s complaint. Some observers are expecting that answer will include a countersuit.

For those who are not aware of what’s going on, Nokia sued Apple for violating 10 wireless patents. Nilay Patel from Engadget did a fantastic job at covering the details of the case, it’s consequences, and likely results. Expect to be reading about Apple vs. Nokia for at least a year, probably two. Things like this never end as fast as you’d like them to, and the results are never what you expect. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. You’ll keep on buying the latest iPhones or Nokia smartphones.

Could it be that the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and Pixi are coming to TELUS (NYSE: TU) for Canadian consumption? That’s what I’ve been hearing recently.

As we all know, the Palm Pixi is due to hit Sprint for our American friends on November 15th… the date is really sneaking up on us, it’s less than a week away now… the Palm Pre has been available for some time now in the US, and Bell has been toting the Pre up in Canada for a little while now too. Those that have the Pre generally love the device, but I know there are some that would like to see the Pre hit more than one carrier… and that’s what we’re going to see in Canada in 2010.

With TELUS rumored to pick up the Pixi and Pre in early 2010, TELUS has, in a nutshell, upped their game. Just check out the list of devices TELUS is currently offering, a list which must have Rogers (NYSE: RCI) shaking just a little bit in their shiny red boots:

• iPhone 3G and 3GS
• HTC Hero
• Nokia E71
• BlackBerry Bold 9700
• BlackBerry Tour 9630

Put these devices together with a solid new HSPA+ network and a dash of extra Android love with the Motorola Milestone (coming soon too), the Palm Pre and Pixi are going to make TELUS the favorite for my recently fabricated ‘Most Awesome Canadian Carrier’ in 2010.

TELUS, all the stuff you’ve been doing recently… yeah, just keep doing it.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) recently spent an excessive amount of money to produce a 4 minute video showcasing what they think the connected world of 2015 will look like. The first narrative focuses on a French businessman who recently relocated to San Francisco. Apparently he is antisocial because the “closest thing to a boy’s night out” is sitting in front of a television screen, watching a football match, while having a video call with 3 of his friends across the pond. After 2 bottles of wine at home, alone, I bet one of them drops their pants and moons everyone in the room. The next character in this cell shaded investor relations pornography feature film is Maria, a student with an obvious lisp attending her final year at the University of Barcelona, and she is in a club with her friends … but she can’t remember their names. What the hell kind of friend are you Maria? Her boyfriend is based in London, so they have to resort to cyber sex in their “online apartment” using a projected keyboard and display to feel connected.

Finally we have some Indian guy who downloads films to his device, projects them onto a wall so he and his family can watch them, and he sends reports of his fishing trip to a University in America who then deposits money in his Nokia bank account. The video ends with a whole bunch of buzz words flashing on the screen in a seemingly random way that resembles what we all saw in 1999’s hit film “The Matrix”. We can only hope that by 2015 Nokia finally manages to get kinetic scrolling to work without looking jerky, and the Ovi Store to resemble the iPhone App Store of today.

[Via: Nokia Conversations]

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) makes close to 4 out of every 10 handsets sold on the planet and in Q3 2009 the Finnish firm made $1.1 in operating profit on the sale of 108.5 million units. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) sold “only” 7.4 million iPhones, yet they made $1.6 billion in profit. This is the first time in the history of mobile telecommunications that someone has made more money than Nokia on mobile phones. These figures were provided by Alex Spektor, Analyst at Strategy Analytics. His colleague Neil Mawston, Director of Wireless Device Strategies, had this piece of advice to offer:

“Nokia’s profit margin for its handset division has been shrinking during the 2009 global economic downturn. Strategy Analytics believes that the United States, where Nokia now trails Apple in marketshare, is the key to Nokia’s recovery in 2010. A successful fight on Apple’s high-profit home turf can simultaneously help to revitalize Nokia’s margins and to put a check on Apple’s surging growth.”

I’m not really surprised, and you should not be either. Just about every other market operates the same way. Porsche is the world’s most profitable auto maker, but they don’t sell nearly the amount of cars that Ford does. Porsche also doesn’t make a model that sells for $12,000, yet Ford has such a model, and plenty of them too. Ford’s highest end product, the Ford GT, is also pile of poop compared to anything the Germans have to offer. Different companies make different products for different people. Apple makes the best smartphone on the planet (my opinion, not universally shared, don’t complain, I don’t care) because the people working in the handset division concentrate on high end devices. Nokia is a huge company, but how many people do you think work on the 20 EUR devices that go to the emerging economies around the world, and the 100 EUR devices that go to people who are not that well off in West European countries, and how many people are left to work on the N97, N900, and other high end models?

Can Nokia make the best smartphone or are they in an environment where it simply isn’t possible?

[Via: TechCrunch]

File this under “rumors” but it seems T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) will not only be known for its Android efforts and as a carrier that will probably (we still don’t have this 100% confirmed) carry the Maemo-powered Nokia N900. The Deutsche Telecom-owned operator may also get to offer the Nokia 5230. Or at least we’ve spotted a device that looks pretty much like Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Symbian S60-running smartphone at the FCC.

Of course, AWS bands are included in the mix, meaning this baby will rock 3G as soon as it’s released. Clearing the FCC is one step, but actually announcing the device is something else. We only hope that between those two steps, we won’t have to wait for too long…

[Via: CellPhoneSignal]

The Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N900 inches closer to a retail launch today with Espoo’s announcement that they’ve started shipping their N900 to distributors and retailers. Nokia recently missed its initial October 2009 window for shipping the N900, so today’s announcement is great news for fans of the N900’s 3.5-inch touchscreen, powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 5-megapixel Car Zeiss camera and Maemo 5 OS. Nokia says that the N900 will soon be available in retail stores with an estimated price-tag of €500 EUR. We had a chance to go hands-on with the N900, read up on our impressions here.

“The Nokia N900 has generated a lot of interest since its public launch in August, which has been reflected in the device preorders,” says Jose-Luis Martinez, Vice President, Nseries, Nokia. “What’s exciting is the Maemo software, which takes its cues from the desktop computer and offers a full browsing experience like no other handset. We believe the Nokia N900 will be a very compelling device for people who are passionate about technology.”

Nokia has officially announced that they’ll be launching a completely revamped Maemo 6 OS next year, which is expected to blow Maemo 5 out of the water, but won’t work with the N900. For some, that’s not going to stop them from picking up an N900 this year. Will you be picking up the N900 with Maemo 5?

Full press release after the break.

Read the full article »

Alex Albrecht, from the popular video podcast Diggnation, received a brand spanking new Nokia Booklet 3G and has posted an unboxing video. Notice how he immediately comments on Windows using “an old theme”. That’s called Windows 7 Starter baby, and it’s what Americans are going to get in order to make the cost as low as humanly possible. The dollar is weak. That $600 price tag is roughly 400 EUR, and here in Finland the Booklet 3G is twice that, as in 800 EUR.

Update: Correction, Finland is getting Windows 7 Starter Edition as well. Oh boy. That makes me mad.

[Hat tip to Ricky Cadden from Symbian-Guru for this tweet]