It’s nice when a post with such a grandiose title like "The Unbearable Inevitability of Being Android, 1995" actually delivers. It takes a look at the number of “Android will crush everyone in 2011” articles and ponders what that actually means. Not directly for the industry as a whole, but what it means for Google as a business, and the hardware partners who have tied themselves to the Mountain View company?

We reported recently that the MeeGo 1.1 SDK had been released for Ubuntu and Fedora Linux distributions. In addition to those releases, the MeeGo project have released a beta version SDK for Windows as well. Documentation is available at the MeeGo Wiki. There are some hardware compatibility issues that need to be taken into account before installing, and there is only a limited number of run-time targets that have been verified for Windows. Also, Windows Vista is not support. Some research before installing is recommended!

At this time of year, the hardest thing to hear is a relative asking “what would you like for Christmas?” So I've come up with nine top gift ideas that you can handily print out, then ring one (or two) of them with a big marker pen before casually leaving it on the dinner table. Want a smartphone Christmas? Here’s what you need.

Tomi Ahonen has been an industry commentator on the smartphone for a long time (and we’ve linked to a fair number of his pieces) but his recent article about "Some Symbian Sanity" (and a fair bit about MeeGo) is not only a long and in-depth look at Nokia’s strategy, but goes over many reasons why Nokia are far from out of the smartphone game.

Marko Ahtisaari, SVP of industrial design at Nokia, was one of the guest speakers at this year's LeWeb Conference. He covered topics from dominant designs of smartphone user interface and collective intelligence with mobile devices. He outlined why he sees that there's plenty of work to be done in the world of mobile user experience, particularly in having mobile devices actually demand less of our attention. In his view, iOS is "beautifully elegant and fantastically constrained", while Symbian and Android actually share the same design pattern but differ greatly in their business models. Read on for a in-depth account of the speech and Q&A session.

The MeeGo project has launched a new website for the developer community, developer.meego.com. Currently the website is in a private beta, but is usable and ready receive ideas and content. The new site already hosts a wide range of content. For example, developers will find guides for writing original code and for installing MeeGo on compatible devices. Also on offer are development tools like the MeeGo 1.1 SDK, and UI development guidelines. Read on for more.

Kudos to the web programmers and the rest of the team at GSM Arena, who have produced the really rather cool 'Photo Compare Tool'. Essentially they've taken a large number of recent phones and smartphones and shot the same three test photos with each (ISO 12233, Grey and Colour). You can then choose which three phones you'd like to compare using the drop-down pick lists and click any of the offered crops to show the full photo in the main window. Oh heck, just go try it, you'll see what I mean. Curiously, the Symbian-powered camera champions, the Nokia N86, Samsung i8910 and Sony Ericsson Satio aren't represented, but there's still plenty of other Symbian (and Maemo) interest. Full list below.

Nokia has announced it has appointed Jerri DeVard as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. A new Marketing and Communication organisation will be formed under the CMO, which will bring together Nokia's Marketing, Brand Management, Communications and select Industry collaboration activities. DeVard will sit on the Nokia Group Executive Board, underlining the seniority and importance of her position, but will report to Niklas Savander, EVP of Nokia's Markets unit.

AAS fans might like to note that our very own Rafe Blandford and David Gilson have been the guests on The Phones Show Chat podcast over the last two weeks, Rafe in chat 64 and David in chat 63, providing analysis with their own particular slant, notably with much mention of MeeGo, still prominent in the news following the conference last week, but also with masses of Symbian chat as well. Worth a listen to one of them over your lunch-hour? Also, see below for an important URL change for 3-Lib and The Phones Show - my old web server is disappearing up Sky's tailpipe at the end of 2010!

You'll remember that I've been evolving a number of theories on the subject of just what makes a 'smartphone' smart? I postulated that Nokia's definition (and mine) of a 'smartphone' differed rather wildly from that of the popular tech media, who are really talking about what we're now starting to term 'superphones'. In the feature below, I present more analysis of the mobile device world, showing that there are in fact four specific 'bands' of form and functionality - bands that will always exist - one size really can't fit all.