Following last week's 48 hour poll to take a snapshot of the Symbian-powered smartphones you're currently using and your plans for the future, Steve Litchfield picks through the stats and draws out a few surprises.
An unofficial All About Symbian poll. What do you currently use and what are you planning on using in 6 months time? Please help us aim our articles, reviews and support at the platforms that matter to you by answering one question in our poll. Thanks.
On the day of the announcement of the Nokia N73 and N93, no prizes for guessing what Symbian's David Wood's latest topic is over on symbian.com. In Insight no. 8, he goes into even more detail than I've done in the past, estimating that the smartphone is on the verge of forcing into extinction over 30 categories of mobile device or service.
Just to prove that there's plenty of life left in your old UIQ 2.x smartphone, Steve's been reviewing Flip Extender, a terrific way of accessing full UIQ functionality with your P900/P910 flip closed, while Ewan reviews Clarissa, a reminder utility that pops up notes when making or receiving calls.
AllAboutSymbian caught up with Bruce Carney, Symbian's head of Developer Marketing, at the recent CTIA show in Las Vegas. How many Symbian OS apps are there, why isn't freeware counted and why all the fuss over Platform Security? Here's the full interview.
No, not another site from Rafe and the team, this is a hugely important FAQ from Forum Nokia explaining the ins and outs of the changes needed in applications in the move to Symbian OS 9 (with Platform Security). A must-read for anyone even remotely interested in developing applications for the next gen of Symbian-powered hardware.
Orange have announced more details of their latest developer event. The Orange Partner Camp's Platinum sponsor is Symbian, and with UIQ as Gold sponsors and Nokia as Silver sponsors the event looks like the non-Orange content will be dominated by the Symbian platforms. There are sessions on a wide range of topics from mobile TV and mobile search to usability and segmentation. You can read our report from the last Orange developer event here.
Ever helpful, Ewan has prepared a quick reference guide to the brand new Symbian OS powered smartphones that are specifically aimed at music playback, with comparison to the ubiquitous iPod. Food for thought, though don't forget that almost any recent Symbian OS device can also play back stereo music too...
Those mobile Ruskies have done it again - here's their detailed review of the upcoming UIQ 3-powered Sony Ericsson M600. It's in halting English again, but hey, I can't speak Russian, so...
Opera Mini, the proxy browser that I declared in my review would 'change the way you browse, the sign of a killer application' seems to be going from strength to strength, according to Opera's latest press release and observing a number of industry deals, ranging from added-value branding and support from Onspeed Mobile to a variety of redistribution deals. Opera Mini currently serves up over 4 million pages a day to mobile and smartphone users.
Woize plans to launch a SIP client for Symbian OS 9.1 (S60 3rd Edition and UIQ 3). The software is targeted at WiFI enabled phones. Wozie offers a similar service to Skype with clients available for PC and other mobile platforms. It is primairly aimed at consumers. Calls between Woize users are free with low charges for normal land and mobile lines.
Sept Solutions have announced that they're building a reader for OpenDocument files (as used by OpenOffice 2) for all Symbian platforms, followed by an editing suite. Press release here.
For all those occasions where you need quick and cheap web info on your smartphone and it's not covered by RSS subs or other Internet apps, what you need is a bookmarked page of essentially text-only 'useful links'. I've just updated the 3-Lib web guide.
AllTunes is a music download service from the company behind AllofMP3. AllTunes provides an iTunes like PC client, but there is also a beta version of a smartphone client application available for S60 (2nd Edition) and UIQ 2 phones. The program is not fully functional yet (downloads are not yet implemented), but it does provide an interesting glimpse of one possible music service for mobiles.
