With over two thirds of users choosing to be billed through their mobile phone account (where available), and 90% of users able to use their own language, it's getting harder and harder for everyone to ignore the Ovi Store. It's on an upward curve of adoption by users, developers and networks, and now welcomes China into the Top Ten list of active countries.
Planet maemo: category "feed:f265f7d2656e9e6bc0cc4cb2f7d479e0"
The N900 has been available in the market for a couple of months now. From a geek point of view, it's an attractive device, but what if you are not a geek, and want to use it as a portable multimedia system? With a Mac?
Our very own Rafe is the author of a thought provoking editorial today over on Nokia Conversations, musing over the future of the (mobile) operating system and covering intelligence, location awareness and social nature. Comments welcome if you think he is, or isn't, on the right track!
It's true that the accessory title rather gives the game away and isn't inspiring, but this is an accessory that's much needed in the smartphone (and general camera phone) world. Steve Litchfield muses on a predecessor and and reviews the latest product that claims to be able to hold your phone while it snaps or videos away.
“Show me the money” is a common refrain when looking at a business, and mobile is no different. Google already reckon the money is in advertising on mobile, hence their move to acquire AdMob (which is currently being scrutinised by competition agencies in the US), and Apple are expected to launch their own product for the iPhone and iPad early in May (see MediaPost for one of many pieces of speculation). So why is mobile advertising so important to the mobile eco-system? Read on for my analysis.
Our latest MWC video is a tour around the Qt stand, looking at some of the Qt-enabled devices - from phones to printers and appliances. Mobile developers and users have been hearing more and more about Qt in the last 18 months. It is the future application framework for both Symbian and MeeGo (Nokia's two open platforms going forward). However, as this video demonstrates, Qt is already a well established technology and the 'Qt everywhere' slogan has already been realised.
Nokia is currently transforming itself from a hardware company to a hardware+services (solutions) company. At MWC 2010, we spoke to Tero Ojanperä, EVP of Services, in order to get an insight into current progress. Over a wide-ranging interview we cover a number of topics around Nokia's service strategy including how Ovi fits into Nokia's software platform strategy, the thought processes that led to free navigation, the importance of services compared to phone hardware, getting content onto the Ovi Store, the importance of partners and much more.
This month saw the start of the Microsoft Browser Ballot in EU countries. As part of the deal with the Competition watchdogs in Europe, Windows users are being presented with a randomised “ballot” screen of alternative browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome, as well as the company’s Internet Explorer product. Is there any implication to the mobile market in this decision? Maybe...
How long would it take you to find some who has “made a success” out of an application store for any mobile device? Not long, I would think, because these stories are picked up and passed around to “prove” that App Stores work. A case in point is this post on Into Mobile, highlighting the success of an app for Google Android with 6,500 paid for downloads, earning $13,000. But is that the way forward? Read on for my thoughts.
In part 3 of our MWC interview with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, we discuss the future. How "for the great masses of the world, the first computer they will have will be an extension of the phone based on Symbian". How MeeGo's rich contextual crossing of the real and virtual world will use a map-based user interface and will create "the possibility for people to live in the media."
In the second half, we hear about the three "buckets" (types) of competitors, the importance of open standards and ecoystems, and a three-fold answer to how we should judge Nokia's future business performance (KPIs).
In part 2 of our MWC interview with Anssi Vanjoki, EVP of Markets at Nokia, there is discussion of how moving Symbian into the Symbian Foundation stops the platform being "fractioned by individual product programs [within Nokia]". We also touch on whether there is a future for the 'Nokia N95 form factor' smartphone.
In the second half, Anssi Vanjoki talks about Nokia's software strategy and how the common elements of Qt and common Web Runtime provide a unifying layer between Symbian and MeeGo. He then touches on the importance of open source as a new 'software making model' for Nokia moving forward.
You want a particular character or accent but can't find it on your N900's keyboard. What do you do? Well, there is actually a built-in character and accent menu, but it seems some people have been missing it, so we present below a short-and-sweet video showing how to accesss it.