IntoMobile » Symbian

Calling all mobile app developers! Tell us why your app rocks!

Will Park — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:40 +0000

Do you develop mobile apps for the iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian or webOS? Well, we want to hear from you! We’ve partnered up with “Under The Radar” to find cool mobile apps that will blow our minds. We’re asking any and all mobile app developers to submit their app for the “FAST PITCH” mobile app talent search, where your app will vie for a chance to be showcased in front of an audience of global dealmakers and start-ups. Even if we don’t pick your app for the talent search, you’ll get some serious recognition for your app (and possibly prizes, like handsets).

Interested? Here’s what you need to know:

You must be able to attend Under the Radar (in Mountain View on Nov 19)
- If you’re selected as a finalist, you’ll get a free conference pass
Your app has to be live and available for download
We welcome any and all apps for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian, etc
Your app must be unique and new – no tip calculators or sudoku apps, please
You must be able to pitch your app in 2 min (and 4 slides) on stage

We’re going to make it simple for you to submit your app for consideration in the “Under The Radar” FAST PITCH mobile app talent search. Interested mobile devs need only leave a comment or tweet @IntoMobile with a quick one-liner pitch for your mobile app – Twitter is limited to 140 characters, so choose accordingly. Please make sure to include a link to your app’s download page (or homepage) and your Twitter handle with your submission.

Your app will be judged for its “uniqueness” and the all important “awesomeness” metric. We’ll be accepting mobile app submissions through Friday, Nov. 6 Monday, Nov. 9 (deadline extended). The 6 lucky finalists will be contacted directly through email and/or Twitter.

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Video: Opera Mobile 10 Beta being demoed on a Nokia N97

Stefan Constantinescu — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:24:30 +0000

Waking up and receiving good news doesn’t happen often enough, so when I opened my crusty teared eyes at 10 in the morning (Helsinki time) and got this press release in the mail, I hit the roof. Opera, the Norwegian company we all love, makers of the Opera desktop browser, Opera Mobile for Windows Mobile, and Opera Mini, one of my favorite mobile applications of all time, has released Opera Mobile 10 Beta for Symbian.

At this point you’re expect a full on review/preview of the application, but I would be wasting my breathe trying to say something genuinely new. It’s literally Opera Mini 5 Beta, but written in Symbian code rather than J2ME code. It’s noticeably more responsive than Opera Mini 5 Beta, the copy and paste actually works now, best of all it is possible to copy and paste text from the browser to another application. Opera Turbo support is included, but disabled by default. Turbo is the same technology that powers Opera Mini. You type in a URL, Opera intercepts that request, feeds it to a server sitting somewhere next to a moose in Northern Europe, renders the page, compresses it, and then spits it back to your mobile phone. I’d be lying if I said a website rendered with Opera Mobile 10 Beta consumed the same information as the same website rendered in Opera Mini 5 Beta; the J2ME client wins hands down at using the least amount of data necessary to display a website.

Things of note: this works on both touch (S60 5th Edition) and non touch (S60 Everything Else Edition) devices, and with the ability of Opera Link you’ll be able to sync bookmarks and passwords between the desktop version of Opera and the mobile version.

Check out the demo video below:

Oh and if you want to download it yourself, just type m.opera.com/mobile into your mobile browser.

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Video: Google Mobile App 2.03 now brings voice search to Symbian devices

Stefan Constantinescu — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:50:51 +0000

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has just released Google Mobile App 2.03 for Symbian devices and it now includes voice search! The iPhone, Android and BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) have had this for a while if I’m not mistaken, so this feature is welcome for us Nokia (NYSE: NOK) users. Just launch the application, hold the green call key, and say your query. I tested it by saying “five hundred thousand Vietnamese dong in euros” and it worked beautifully, but then again I’m sitting alone in my dead silent flat. Does this work for you outdoors?

To download the app just go to m.google.com in your mobile browser.

Update: An official blog post from Google detailing the new application, along with a video that has been produced for UK audiences, has been published.

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Qualcomm, Fujitsu join Symbian Foundation

Dusan Belic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:27:59 +0000

Two major companies are joining the Nokia (NYSE: NOK)-led Symbian Foundation. They are Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) and Fujitsu (OTCPK: FJTSY), both of which will get a seat at Foundation’s board of directors.

Qualcomm joined through its subsidiary Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), which will “optimize open source software for use with Qualcomm technology.” Does this means the company is looking to somehow link BREW and Symbian. Hmmm, interesting point. We’ll see…

Fujitsu, which is an old guard Symbian heavyweight with more than 40 million Symbian phones sold in Japan, will also try to find its interest by working with other members of the organization. As far as I can tell, they’ve managed to profit from the “old Symbian” and now that the platform is free, they should be able to repeat the success while saving few bucks on licensing along the way.

And that’s all we got for you in this story. You can check out the two official press releases if you care for corporate quotes.

[Via: Unwired View]

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Nokia Surge Arrives on Rogers

Simon Sage — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:44:12 +0000

As expected, the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Surge 6790 has arrived on Rogers (NYSE: RCI) for the rabid texters out there. An unexpected bonus is a cheaper price point than the originally anticipated: a mere $29.99 on three-year contract. This is one of the cheapest new smartphones you’ll find out there, though the form factor might seem awkward to a lot of folks. Still, it’s packing a 2 megapixel camera, GPS, microSD memory card slot, and a 2.4″ QVGA display. It’s not in Rogers’ online store just yet, but it should be up soon.

[via Nokia]

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Sony Ericsson Satio: Consumers get a 1000 mAh battery while employees get 1350 mAh

Stefan Constantinescu — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:01:37 +0000

Steve O’Hear is in London this week for the 2009 Symbian Exchange and Exposition and had a brief sit down with Anders Westin, Head of Software Relations, Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE). Several questions were asked, mainly concerning Sony Ericsson’s current portfolio which spans every single smartphone operating system under the sun, including, hopefully, Android 2.0 on the XPERIA X3, but the kicker was Steve asking Anders why the Sony Ericsson Satio had such a piss poor battery. The Satio, for those unfamiliar with the device, has a 3.5 inch touch screen, runs Symbian S60 5th Edition and has a 12 megapixel camera. It eats batteries for breakfast. Sony Ericsson has been shipping the Satio with a 1000 mAh battery, and when Steve brought this up to up with Anders, he seemed a bit shocked. “Don’t you mean 1350mAh?” he said, lifting the battery cover off his device to reveal a 35% larger 1350 mAh battery, to which Steve, and many customers around the world, replied “ummm no. what the fuck?”

What gives Sony Ericsson?

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Nokia 6788: Nokia’s first TD-SCDMA smartphone; China only, looks like a round N95 8 GB

Stefan Constantinescu — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:31:39 +0000

China has their own 3G standard. First thing you may be asking yourself is why? China has always done their own thing, and by developing an alternative to WCDMA they save themselves the burden of having to pay for WCDMA royalties. Every decision in today’s mobile world, and I mean every single bloody decision from the materials used to make the body of a device, to whether the instruction manual inside the package comes printed in color or black and white, comes down to money. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) feels that with China’s population of 1.3 billion people, playing their game and making devices that work on their network would be beneficial to their bottom line.

Politics out of the way, does anything make the 6788 special? Well it has two 8s in the product name, which is a big thing in China. Some Chinese, a fair bit actually, are still superstitious and believe that the number 8 will bring them good luck. When picking a mobile phone number, they want to make sure it has as many 8s as possible, and they’ll even pay to have a phone number with a lot of 8s. Specification wise you have a massive 2.8 inch screen that is sadly QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, a 5 megapixel camera, and it’s powered by S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. The 6788 will star shipping in December on China Mobile (NYSE: CHL), price unknown. Looks like Colin Giles, Nokia Senior Vice President for Greater China, Japan and Korea, kept his promise.

[Photo below via All About Symbian]
[Press Release]

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Nokia’s Here and Now adds movies and restaurants

Dusan Belic — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:55:25 +0000

Remember Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Here and Now project we covered some time ago? It has been updated recently to include movies and restaurants to the mix. This means that now (and here ) you will also be able to check out movie listings in theaters around, as well as good places to eat — all from a comfort of your Nokia (or other manufacturer’s) Symbian S60 smartphone.

In addition to the feature upgrade, the latest version of Here and Now also fixes some of the known bugs reported by the users. The download link remains the same…

[Via: Nokia Beta Labs]

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Video: Symbian CEO Lee Williams has balls the size of planet Mars

Stefan Constantinescu — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:54:43 +0000

SEE 2009 is coming up, Symbian’s yearly exposition. I went to the previous two, but I’m not going to attend the one this year. It’s more of a business to business event, and while it would be awesome to see my UK friends, I’m in bootstrapping mode for a project you’ll hear about in Q1 2010. That aside, the CEO of Symbian, Lee Williams, drops some quotes in his interview with Om Malik that make the edges of my lips curl slightly upwards to form a grin. You just have to hear the stuff that comes out of his mouth when he talks about Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Android:

[Via: All About Symbian]

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Allerta’s inPulse Watch Accessory to Show Notifications from BlackBerry, Android and Symbian Phones

Simon Sage — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:16:55 +0000

A couple of University of Waterloo students have put together a company called Allerta which will be making a cool little smartphone accessory that will keep you apprised of e-mail, SMS, and call alerts via Bluetooth while masquerading as a normal watch. I was a little dubious about these concept renderings of the product (they look like something even I could cook up in Pov-Ray), but after seeing this picture from a year ago posted in the comments, outlining some of the features and use cases, inPulse started to look a lot more real. Considering the university is right next door to RIM, it’s no surprise that the inPulse will work with BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), but hopefully it will work other smartphones as advertised back in 2008; Android and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (Symbian) phones were explicitly mentioned. After a quick call, I was told more information would be made available this week, so stay tuned.

P.S.: Shoutout to Ronen for spotting the Flickr link.

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Nokia N97 mini RAOUL limited edition available for pre-ordering in Singapore

Dusan Belic — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:51:51 +0000

There’s a special edition of the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N97 mini, which looks even more like the Samsung Giorgio Armani Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. It’s the RAOUL-branded device and it’s available in just 1000 units in Singapore. The price is S$1138 (about $815) and that money buys you the brown-ish N97 mini emblazoned with RAOUL’s signature stripes on an additional backcover and accessorised with a calf-skin leather pouch and matching leather dangler. Plus, the phone ships with the Fashion Asia widget pre-installed, and it also comes encased in leather-wrapped RAOUL box. In addition, if you order by October 29th, you’ll also get a S$50 Nokia and S$50 RAOUL vouchers… Additional details are available from Nokia Singapore’s website from where you can also push the button, if you desire so.

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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Sony Ericsson Satio goes live with 12.1-megapixel camera in UK!

Will Park — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:49:27 +0000

Following on recently available pre-orders, the fabled Sony Ericsson Idou has just landed on British shores as the Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Satio! The touchscreen Sony Ericsson Satio is the Swedish-Japanese phone maker’s first Symbian S60 5th Edition smartphone and it oozes high-end sex appeal. We had a chance to put hands-on the Satio back when it was known as the Sony Ericsson Idou, and it’s one helluva device – especially since it runs the so-old-it-hurts Sybmain platform.

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) UK is the only carrier to offer the Sony Ericsson Satio at the moment, but Orange has the Satio tagged as “coming soon.” Underneath that high-resolution 3.5-inch touchscreen lies all the high-end smartphone bits that we’d expect to see from a 12.1-megapixel cameraphone monster – DNLA-compatible WiFi, GPS, and 3G data. The glossy-black finish highlights the 12.1-megapixel camera (with Xenon flash) while the 3.5-inch touchscreen plays video with aplomb. Did we mention it sports a 12.1-megapixel camera? Yeah, it’s awesome.

Vodafone is offering the Satio for free when purchased with qualifying 2-year contract. Have at it!

If you’re not lucky enough to live on the British side of the pond, keep yourself busy with our Satio hands-on gallery.

[Via: TechRadar]

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Adobe Flash 10.1 coming to a smartphone near you, unless it’s an iPhone

Will Park — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:27:25 +0000

Adobe has been working to bring full Flash support to smartphones since last year, and it looks like things are finally coming to a head. Adobe has announced that its Adobe Flash 10.1 platform will soon be ready to stream video and interactive online content to a smartphone near you! Unless, that is, the smartphone sitting next to you happens to be an iPhone. In that case, move along, Adobe has yet to announce any Flash support on the iPhone. If you’re using a Windows Mobile, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), Symbian, webOS or Android smartphone, then you’ll be happy to hear that Adobe will soon release their Adobe Flash 10.1 browser-based runtime. Windows Mobile and webOS users have it best – they’ll probably get a public beta of Flash 10.1 before year’s end!

The Flash 10.1 runtime is the first real fruit borne of Adobe’s Open Screen Project, an initiative to optimized Flash technology for the small screen. To make Flash 10.1 smartphone-friendly, Adobe boffins have been hard at working streamlining the software. Adobe also taps into a smartphone’s GPU (graphics processing unit) to help lighten the processing load on a the CPU, which allows it to run faster and draw less power. How much does all that optimization help? Adobe says software rendering on Flash 10.1 is 87% faster, with mobile phone memory consumption reduced by 55%. That’s impressive.

To prove that Flash 10.1 is intended for smartphones, Adobe baked in support for multi-touch inputs, gesture controls, accelerometer inputs. There’s also support for the HTTP streaming protocol that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has been championing as their video-streaming technology of choice.

And, speaking of Apple, the iPhone is still conspicuously missing from the Flash party. Apple says that Flash is still too resource intensive for their iPhone. Apple has clearly gone to great lengths to keep the iPhone OS and iPhone apps as lag free as possible, and Flash technology might screw that all up. But, there may be more to the story than meets the eye – Apple may be trying to block Flash-based apps from bypassing the AppStore. Flash apps don’t need to be installed on the iPhone, so Apple doesn’t control (gasp!) that aspect of the iPhone experience. We’re sure Steve Jobs has a problem with that.

Adobe will follow the late-2009 launch of the Flash 10.1 public beta with another public beta release for Android and Symbian platforms in early 2010. We should start to see handsets packing Flash 10.1 in the first half of 2010.

[Via: Adobe]

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Nokia X6 is at the FCC, all in its capacitive glory

Dusan Belic — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:08:11 +0000

The first capacitive touchscreen-equipped Nokia (NYSE: NOK) smartphone, X6, is at the FCC. As you can see from the image above, Nokia’s or FCC’s engineers prepared the device for thorough testing. I’m not sure I know which part does what, but I do know that 3.2-inch screen won’t work with a stylus. Then there’s 32GB of flash memory, solid camera and so on. We’ve no doubts the Finnish giant will push this baby toward the U.S. market to hopefully get some people in love with S60. We’ll see how that works…

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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Stolen In 60 Seconds for Symbian S60 5th Edition is a strategy puzzler

Dusan Belic — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:41:59 +0000

HeroCraft has a new game for Symbian S60 5th Edition device owners. It’s called “Stolen In 60 Seconds” and according to HeroCraft’s words, it combines genres of strategy and puzzle, revealing “all dark corners of the criminal world.” In other words, you’ll lead a thief whose goal is, well, to steal things from other people.

Key game features include:

A combination of the stepwise planning of a burglary and the real-time action
A dozen thieves tools
The increasing complication of quests
About two dozen original operations

Sounds exciting? You can get more details about the game from HeroCraft’s website. While there you can also check out their other games, most of which now work on touch-enabled S60 smartphones.

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Symbian and Windows Mobile losing mobile browser war to iPhone, Android and webOS

Will Park — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:40:01 +0000

The iPhone OS is the most popular smartphone operating system for browsing the web. AdMob’s latest report will have you believe that the iPhone claims 40% of the smartphone market, up from 33% in February. While that figure isn’t necessarily true – AdMob’s numbers only represent mobile browser share within AdMob’s ad network – the report does show that consumers are browsing more using smartphones powered by the iPhone OS, Android OS and webOS. Windows Mobile and Symbian on the other hand, are losing the mobile browser war.

Breaking it down, AdMob’s has seen the Android OS pulling down 7% of mobile ads in their network, up from 2%. The webOS, which powers the new Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, is responsible for a healthy 4% of AdMob’s mobile ad impressions. The Symbian OS has lost considerable market share, dropping from a solid 43% to just 34%. Windows Mobile’s market share also took a hit with only 4% of AdMob’s mobile ads finding their way to the platform.

What’s going on? It seems that the new wave of smartphone operating systems are making it easier and more enjoyable to browse the web. Consumers are more willing to hop on the mobile web with smartphones running the new school of smartphone platforms. Traffic from the older school Symbian and Windows Phone platforms just isn’t keeping up. The trend echos a recent study that showed significant growth in the smartphone market for the iPhone, but at the cost of Windows Mobile and Symbian’s declining market share.

But, there’s still hope. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) plans to get serious with Symbian in a couple years and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is just about ready to take the wraps off their revamped Mobile Internet Explorer browser with the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 on October 6. For the sake of competition, let’s hope these two industry giants can reclaim a part of their market.

[Via: AdMob] (PDF link)

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Ovi Mail Setup for S60 released in beta

Dusan Belic — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:18:17 +0000

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has released a new S60 app called Ovi Mail Setup, allowing users to sign-up for an Ovi Mail account directly from their S60 smartphone. The application will guide you through the process of signing up and, as a result, install a new icon in the Installations folder for quick access to Ovi Mail.

So, it’s not an email client — you’ll still use Nokia’s existing email client — it’s an app that will help you setup Ovi Mail and ultimately stay in the Nokia ecosystem… It’s available as a free download from Nokia Beta Labs.

[Via: Nokia Beta Labs Blog]

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Survey: iPhone leads Android in customer satisfaction

Will Park — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:41:40 +0000

Smartphones are becoming the norm in the mobile space. Thanks to the iPhone, consumers are now more aware of smartphones and their capabilities than ever before. And, according to a new survey from CFI Group, the smartphone that sparked the current smartphone boom is still tops in consumers’ minds. The survey gives the iPhone a score of 83 (out of 100) in customer satisfaction. The webOS-powered Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and Android-powered smartphones tied for second-place with a customer satisfaction score of 77 points. Smartphones running the Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems are lumped together with a last-place score of 66.

But, the surge in smartphone adoption isn’t without its own drawbacks. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s always satisfying iPhone has been something of a bane for AT&T (NYSE: T)’s 3G network. With droves of iPhone users hammering away at the wireless network, AT&T has been having a tough time keeping up with demand. The exclusive US iPhone carrier scored the lowest in customer satisfaction ratings – 69 and 66 in customer satisfaction and likelihood of recommending the carrier to others, respectively. T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) (79/76) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless (70/77) were virtually tied as the most satisfying wireless carrier in the US. Unfortunately, only 38% of Verizon customers felt their smartphone was the ideal smartphone. That last bit highlights how far behind the market Verizon lags in bringing compelling hardware to their subscribers.

It seems that the iPhone is the smartphone to have. But, it also comes tied to the worst wireless network in the US. If you’re looking for the best wireless performance, you’ll have to trade cool hardware for Verizon’s superior network. T-Mobile looks like the best compromise. Especially with the Android-powered myTouch3G and Motorola CLIQ boosting its smartphone portfolio.

For what it’s worth, there’s a lot of cool stuff happening in Android development circles. With a little more time to mature, Android devices like the HTC Hero and Motorola Sholes could finally give the iPhone reason to sweat.

[Via: Cnet]

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Nokia N97 mini with quad-band 3G radio is at the FCC

Dusan Belic — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:53:10 +0000

It’s good to see Nokia (NYSE: NOK) finally making true world phones. By this I mean a single device that sings on both 900/2100MHz and 850/1900 MHz, used in Europe/Asia and North America, respectively. On that note, the Nokia N97 mini has been spotted at the FCC with a quad-band 3G radio, meaning you’ll be able to use it both in the U.S. and Europe, which is cool. You know rest of the mini’s specs, so I won’t repeat them here. I’ll only add that I’m hoping this will be the Finnish giant’s practice for all high-end devices in the future. No one wants to have a special phone when travelling, right?

[Via: Engadget Mobile]

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TuneWiki brings its social media player to Symbian S60 5th Edition devices

Dusan Belic — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:31:27 +0000

TuneWiki is bringing its social media player to the Symbian S60 5th Edition devices. The company showcased the application at this year’s DEMOfall 09 demoing it on Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s recently announced X6 smartphone. Of course, the app can work on other S60 devices as well (non-touch enabled S60 smartphones included), and the version for Series 40 feature phones is in development.

What’s especially interesting about the S60 version of TuneWiki is that it offers a “Follow Me” feature, allowing a user’s social network to see what that user is listening to. The player also allows music videos to be viewed with subtitled lyrics, and the user can “blip” a link to his or her social networks to display the music being played.

Want it? Simply search for TuneWiki in the Ovi Store and take it from there.

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