So with MWC just around the corner (Feb 27th) rumors have started to surface about what Nokia might unveil there, according to a source at forbes Nokias presence at MWC will be in the shape of:

run an unusual software feature normally found only on high-end smartphones.

Way to leave our minds roam freely in the cursed Rumor/dream land, well we’ll try our best, as far as I know there isn’t a specific software feature that lays the claim to “high-end smartphones” of course you have Voice Command/ Siri but that is present on all ranges of smartphones and even some dumb-phones. Of course just to add to the agonizing speculation we have no idea which OS this ‘special software feature’ is destined for! Could it be a new Feature phone (S40?) or maybe a low end S^3 device? possibly even a low end WP considering how all the Tango rumors have lead us to believe that Tango will bring increased support for cheaper lower range phones (smaller screens, no camera required….).

Personally I think it’s either going to be a dedicated Voice control system that can take apple head on (except for the fact that it wont set you back 600 dollars- come to think of it that would be a killer idea) or maybe some sort of swipe Ui on Symbian 3 devices? (now that Belles rolled out they can work on making it more amazing rather than having a million bugs to fix). Or possibly a extremely advanced gesture controlled screen that could be fully functional without the need for any buttons at all (extending on the N9s swipe interface)??

What do you think?

VIA

However the way this new and improved C5 came into the world doesn’t matter, what does matter is the C5 itself.

Key features

• Improved camera, 3.2MP to 5MP. (Still an EDoF unit though)
• A bump in internal memory from 50MB to 270MB
• More RAM, now 256MB instead of 128MB
• Runs Symbian S60v3.2

Eventhough it’s a device most of our readers won’t jump out of their seats for, it is a rather compelling device. Styled in an modest way, comes with OVI Maps 3.4 (or Nokia Maps whatever you want to call it) and thus lifetime free navigation and with the uprated RAM and internal memory it’s a much more flexibile device that can last at least a couple of years.

So if calling and SMS is your priority and you want just a little bit extra, then the C5 is a real contender.

via AllAboutSymbian

Gotta love twitter! This recent news was broken a few hours back but has completely taken over the twitter-verse in the past hour or two. According to the people at Qt- labs this new release is the marriage of the Nokia Qt SDK and the previous Qt SDK based on Qt 4.7.  Barely a day ago I was writing a post complaining about the lack of development tools from Nokia using Qt 4.7 which is pretty much the awesome sauce that everyone and their developer mothers has been looking forward to for a while now.

If you didn’t know, Qt 4.7 brings massive performance improvements to HTML rendering in addition to support for the HTML 5 hotness that everyone’s been harping about. This in addition to an improved Javascript engine (the main pain point of the current browser) and increased W3C (CSS and the like) compliance pretty much rounds off the WEB based additions to the Qt platform. The most interesting addition to  Qt 4.7 is the inclusion of Qt Quick aka QML, which allows for quick, easy creation of fluid user interfaces user significantly less code than would otherwise be necessary.

From the Nokia Qt SDK side there was the App simulator which has been included in this release as well as the ability to remotely compile apps to run on chosen platforms. Added to the API’s included with the most recent release of Qt Mobility 1.1 such as the Organizer API with support for iCal support allowing for the possibility of an improved calendar app with Google calendar/Ovi Calendar syncing (crossing fingers ) I’m pretty sure devs the world over are salivating at the prospect of building some pretty cool applications.

The major  caveats here are that OpenGL ES support for Symbian is still not included, meaning that applications are gonna have to take all their processing power from the CPU (bummer!! ) as well as the absence of MeeGo support . There may be a workaround for the former, however with native C++ API’s now being accessible from the same Qt SDK 1.1.

Any budding developers reading this, head over to the source link ASAP. Everyone else sound off in the comments!!

Update:

Forgot to mention support for Mac development Enjoy

Source: Qt labs

CJ from ZOMGitsCj has just posted the news that quite a few of Nokia’s “lower-end” devices have received firmware updates. The devices with updates include the C7, C5, C5-03, X3-02 and the 5250. The majority of these updates are minor at best but may contain changes to a few of your gripes and issues with the aforementioned devices.

Tentative changelogs for each device after the break:

C7:

Possible changes to firmware name/ numbering.

No other known changes.

C5:

No known changes

C5-03:

Updated icons and graphics

Improvements to Menu

X3-02:

Undisclose Performance and Usability improvements

5250:

Improved Bluetooth performance and connectivity when using bluetooth headsets

FM radio  improvements

Via

In the upheaval that was our move to self-hosting and the associated problems we missed a few days of news and happenings, of note was the news that Ovi Suite 3.0, the desktop syncing, messaging and firmware update client for Nokia’s devices had moved out of Beta and into a full release.

Opening the Ovi Suite client that I had, version 2.2, I clicked the update feature and waited for what felt like an eternity while the ~100Mb installation file downloaded followed by what seemed like an eternity while the application installed. In essence, what should have been a simple update was a lesson in patience and how best to handle frustration. Added to the length of time the entire process took, the installation gave no indication of how much progress had been made in the installation. Seriously, dropped points Nokia. In terms of changes to the actual client, they were/are minimal but not entirely useless included slight changes to music interaction and Ovi Store suggestions right on the home page. Nothing ground-breaking but nothing particularly unwelcome.

Some changes we’d like to see implemented:

1. Integrate with Ovi Calendar thus increasing the likelihood of using the client for PIM functions. This in turn should increase the utilization of the services you already provide.
2. Advertise your services like the never-mention Ovi Contacts which is a lot like BBM for Nokia devices.
3. Improve installation experience, seriously frustrating!
4. Better integration with web services like Ovi Store, should not need to leave the client in order to use ANY of your services.

Download link available at the “via” link below

via

As mentioned in Jay’s previous post in November, today marks the official close of the Symbian foundation websites. While most of our readers likely never had much experience with or exposure to these websites, they posed a major resource for a lot of curious cats like myself who wanted to keep track of progress on Symbian development as well as contribute ideas for improvements and/or features that we wanted to see in the platform. Nokia has created their own Symbian blog which in due course is expected to be populated with news etc. concerning the platform progress, releases and projects being undertaken that are related to Symbian.

However, all indications point towards a more closed system of development being undertaken.Whether this is done in a similar manner to the Google Android method where code dumps are made regularly and changes made at the whim of the company overseeing development remains to be seen. This, however, is both a positive and negative in that the closed system has somewhat less red tape and bureaucracy standing between ideas/concepts and the realization and productizing of these concepts. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of valuable community feedback and input. Simply looking at the number of great and well supported ideas that were submitted to the Symbian Ideas site (now unavailable of course) is testament to the benefit of using collective intelligence and outside ideas.

Statement by Tim Holbrow, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation after the break:

“In 2009, we established the Symbian Foundation to make the Symbian platform available open source and royalty-free. In November 2010 we announced that the foundation would ramp down its operational activities as a result of changes in global economic and market conditions.

We are now well underway with transitioning the foundation from a non-profit organisation responsible for governing the open development and curation of the Symbian platform, to a licensing entity with no permanent staff. Moving forward, the foundation will be responsible only for specific licensing and legal frameworks put in place during the open sourcing of the platform.

The Symbian platform will continue to evolve under Nokia, who have committed to make the future development of the platform available via an alternative direct and open model.

Due to this transition, many of the operations and services the foundation provided to the Symbian community have now ceased. With the exception of this blog site, the foundation’s public websites have closed, along with open access to the Symbian source code.

However, much of the foundation’s data is available to the public via FTP until 31 March 2011. For access to this content, please e-mail contact@symbian.org. Some content is still controlled under certain licenses; Symbian Foundation members will continue to have access to Symbian Foundation License content.

Specifically, the FTP site will allow access to:

1. Current platform source code
2. Platform Development Kits:
   • S^2 PDK 2.0.3 (parts of S^2 are only available to current Symbian Foundation members)
   • S^3 PDK 3.0.4
   • S^4 PDK 4.0.a
3. Databases:
   • Database exports from Bugzilla, Wiki, Forums, Ideas and Symbian Horizon.
     NOTE: all private, personal information has been removed
4. Documentation:
   • HTML source for the platform reference documentation and public mailing lists

Access to the FTP site will cease on 31 March 2011; by this date we anticipate a new model for hosting Symbian code will be available from Nokia.

You can find more information on Nokia’s plans for Symbian at http://symbian.nokia.com. Forum Nokia is the best place to access developer support for Symbian, including tools, documentation, technical support, and discussion boards.

We would like to extend our deepest thanks to everyone who contributed to the major milestones achieved at the Symbian Foundation. We can all be proud of these accomplishments – some not seen before in the history of computing, such as the completion of the largest transition to open source of any commercial codebase in software history. We would also like to extend warm thanks to the entire member community for their continued commitment to the Symbian platform.

We are confident that these are absolutely the right changes in the context of today’s market and economy, and we look forward to watching a new era of success for the Symbian platform unfold.”

Via

I think all of us here have borne witness to this, major US/UK blogs and their stance towards Nokia, Symbian and anything smartphone related originating outside of the US, the exceptions being HTC and Samsung for reasons obvious to anyone with eyes. The question is why?  Why is it that Nokia get constantly lambasted for doing ANYTHING or mocked for coming to the table too late while the others are constantly praised for doing admittedly mundane things (Facetime anyone?) . This post/rant is intended to look at common criticisms leveled at Nokia and by proxy, Symbian, each of which will be evaluated as best as possible by yours truly. Let’s get started then!

1. Symbian is old antiquated technology, it should be dropped.

Easily one of the most common criticisms leveled Nokia and Symbian’s way and easily the most simple to refute. Many mention that Symbian OS is old and has no place in the current web-connected, social network driven world currently infesting the western world. Taking a quick look at Symbian’s history and the roots of the OS, one would be inclined to agree that some of the basis of this argument has real world fact associated with it.

The EKA2 kernel used in current iterations of Symbian and responsible for controlling the interactions of the software with the underlying software was conceived of in 1998 and came into being by 2003. That’s not at all to say that the kernel in its current implementation is the same as it was then, but the idea that devices have limiting CPU, memory and other similar limitations was a major part of the kernel design. This as opposed to the somewhat less limited kernels being used in Android (Linux 2.6.xx kernel) and iOS (based on Mach micro-kernel) which were initially built for larger, less power-dependent computing solutions.

Oddly enough the Mach3.0 micro-kernel used in Mac OS X and by proxy iOS was completed in 1994 while the Linux 2.6.xx branch came into being in 2003. By this logic, Android should be the newest of them all and subsequently the best  ight? As we’ve seen time and again, new does not necessarily equal good with Windows Mobile 6.x based on the CE 5 kernel being nigh on terrible for mobile devices.

EKA2 also allows things that other mobile kernels, specifically iOS  cannot, in particular pre-emptive, priority based multitasking without requiring each thread/process to relinquish CPU time in addition to tight regulation of CPU runtime and API calls.

Detractors for this argument would say that it’s the way in which the user interacts with the interface that matters most and that Symbian is the worst of the big 3 when it comes to the new hotness, touchscreen devices.  That is a valid argument with the Menu and soft-key based interaction method used in legacy Symbian devices S60 v3.x translating very poorly to good touch experience as demonstrated by S60v5. iOS on the other hand was built for direct-interaction and less dependent on hardware buttons, abhorring them in all but the most necessary of circumstances.On the other hand, Android was initially conceived for Blackberry-esque devices and as such maintains a degree of dependency on hardware buttons, Menu, Back, Home and occasionally search. The interaction methods differ significantly between the 3 and for touch interfaces one could argue that iOS is distinctly superior to the other 2.

The differences between the other two interaction methods are less clearly stated and arguably neither is significantly BETTER for most users.  Clearly both have moved towards the newer direct-interaction methods with S^3 and newer versions of Android but the legacy underpinnings remain.

Key takeaway:

“Old” is relative and in a great many cases, having legacy code or kernels is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the implementation that counts most.

2. There are no apps for Symbian

I’ll start with the blatantly obvious caveat that apps do not make the OS or the platform but they damn sure add to it. That said the app situation with Symbian has been in dire straights for a number of years. Initial moves with Ngage 1.0, Download and Ngage 2.0 were almost universally derided in part because of issues with both the carriers and less than stellar implementations. That said, the idea was there and it took a brilliant effort by Apple before carriers were in any way willing to ALLOW such use of their networks, much less one that they stood to benefit in no way from. Applications have always been available across the internet and in repositories like GetJar and millions of forums online for sideloading applications to Nokia devices. The thing is, most users didn’t know or care about how they could do this in the first place and Apple’s effort was admittedly the best implementation of a centralized, on-device store.  The Android store followed soon after the apple store and then the Ovi store 1.0 which in reality should have been called a 0.5 beta version when first released (it really was bad).  In time the store client has improved but the situation with developers did not and the number of quality apps available for the platform has stagnated. The question is why?

Devs were put off by two things, the lack of an easy signing/submission/distribution pipeline and the lack of good, easy-to-use tools and IDE’s. Nokia realized this and made significant moves towards rectifying this issue by acquiring Trolltech and leveraging the Qt environment to allow for easier app development across multiple hardware and software platforms. Additions to the Qt portfolio under Nokia’s stewardship have been almost unanimously praised and the streamlining and ease of use of the submission pipeline have grown significantly over their prior implementations.  Detractors would claim that all of this has done little to change the current devices and applications on the market and they would be right, to an extent. Before S^3 devices came to be, there was little to no market utilization of Qt even if the devices supported it. Furthermore, they would claim that Nokia’s platform seemingly lacked halo devices to draw developer and consumer attention. While I can in no way vouch for the attention of the consumers, it’s blatantly obvious that developers are interested in Qt. Most recent estimates place the number of downloads of the SDK in excess of 1.5 million since it’s release in June of this year. These figures tell a startling tale, interest in Nokia’s platform has grown, even if the end results have yet to be seen.

Key Takeaway:

A number of issues plagued App development for Nokia devices including different hardware platforms, OS versions, OS types, distribution methods and coding/testing difficulties. Nokia has responded to nigh-on all of these and has put together a plan to tie together all of their devices and platforms under a single unified Qt umbrella.

Now that we’ve caught our collective breath!!

Part 2 of this rant will cover some of the other issues and criticisms leveled at Nokia and will hopefully paint a somewhat brighter picture of their future direction, regardless of what the mainstream media (falsely) may say.

It looks like the people over at Nokia Beta Labs are really working hard to get us all some nice things before x-mas as they have just churned out yet another update and this time it is in the form of Nokia Software Updater (aka NSU) 3.0.223 beta which has minor updates from the previous NSU 3.0.156 back in October.

Before I tell you about the changes I just wanted to say keep up the good work to the people over at Nokia Beta Labs as this is the third thing this week and 7th thing in the last 2 weeks which is a jam packed fortnight in the world of software!

OK back to NSU, this update will help to fix some of those bugs with trying to update applications on the N8  as well as the way it helps you to recover your phone if the unfortunate happened and update failed. A full list of updates is below:

• Proxy UI
• Html help
• Automatic client update fixed
• N8 device application update fixed
• SW download changes
• SW update recovery fixed
• Other minor UI changes

Known Issues in NSU 3.0.223

• Proxy UI: Default value ‘No Proxy’ means Auto-detect
• Automatic SW checker: works only when setting is once a week

A quick note from the NSU team:

Especially the proxy UI has been influenced by the testing that has been done within the beta community. So, on behalf of the NSU team, thanks for your contribution!

Like with all stuff on Nokia Beta Labs, please don’t forget that this software is not finished so it may not work exactly as it should. So use it to update your phone firmware at your own risk, but I don’t see any harm in trying out the application updater, etc!

Download: http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-software-updater

Compatability

PC (32 and 64 bit)

• Windows 7
• Windows NT
• Windows Vista
• Windows XP

Devices

• Maemo
  N800, N810, N810 WiMAX Edition, N900

• Symbian^3
  C6-01, C7-00, E7-00, N8

• S40
  6216 classic, 2355, 2650, 3100, 3105, 3108, 3120, 3125, 3200, 3205, 3300, 3300 Americas, 3510i, 3530, 3585i, 3586, 3586i, 3587, 3587i, 3595, 5100, 6010, 6012, 6015, 6015i, 6100, 6108, 6200, 6220, 6225, 6585, 6610, 6610i, 6650, 6651, 6800, 6800 Americas, 6810, 6820, 7200, 7210, 7250, 7250i, 7600, 8910i, 2610, 2626, 2855, 5070, 5140i, 6021, 6030, 6070, 6080, 6101, 6102, 6102i, 6103, 6230, 8801, 7360, 3152, 3155, 3155i, 3220, 5140, 6020, 6060, 6152, 6155, 6155i, 6170, 6230i, 6235, 6235i, 6255, 6822, 7260, 7270, 8800, 6111, 6165, 6275, 7370, 2865, 2865i, 6265, 6265i, 6270, 6275i, 6280, 6282, 6288, 6125, 6126, 6131, 6131 NFC, 6133, 6136, 6151, 6233, 6234, 8600 Luna, 8800 Sirocco Edition, 3109 classic, 3110 classic, 3110 Evolve, 3500 classic, 5200, 5300 XpressMusic, 6085, 6086, 6300, 7373, 7390, 3610 fold, 6263, 6267, 6555, 7500 Prism, 2690, 2700 classic, 2730 classic, 3120 classic, 3208 classic, 3555, 3600 slide, 5130 XpressMusic, 5220 XpressMusic, 5310 XpressMusic, 5610 XpressMusic, 6208 classic, 6212 classic, 6300i, 6301, 6500 classic, 6500 slide, 6600 fold, 6600 slide, 6600i slide, 7210 Supernova, 7310 Supernova, 7610 Supernova, 7900 Prism, 8800 Arte, 8800 Carbon Arte, 8800 Gold Arte, 2220 slide, 2320 classic, 2323 classic, 2330 classic, 2680 slide, 2720 fold, 5000, 7100 Supernova, 1680 classic, 2600 classic, 2630, 2660, 2760, 7070 Prism, 2710 Navigation Edition, 3710 fold, 3720 classic, 5330 Mobile TV Edition, 6260 slide, 6303 classic, 6303i classic, 6350, 6700 classic, 6750 Mural, 7020, 7230, 7510 Supernova.

• S40 6th
  C3-00, X2-00, X3, X3-00, C1-01, C1-02, C2-00, X3-02

• S60
  3600, 3620, 3650, 3660, 7650, N-Gage, N-Gage QD, 6600, 3230, 6260, 6620, 6670, 7610, 6630, 6680, 6681, 6682, N70, N72, N90

• S60 3rd
  N75, 3250, 5500 Sport, E50, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, N71,N73, N77, N80, N91, N91 8GB, N92, N93, N93i, 5700 XpressMusic, 6110 Navigator, 6110 Navigator, 6120 classic, 6121 classic, 6124 classic, 6290, E51, E63, E66, E71, E90 Communicator, N76, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, N95 8GB, N95-3 NAM, 5320 XpressMusic, 5630 XpressMusic, 5730 XpressMusic, 6210 Navigator, 6220 classic, 6650 fold, 6700 slide, 6710 Navigator, 6720 classic, 6730 classic, 6760 slide, 6788, 6788i, 6790 slide, 6790 Surge, C5-00, C5-01, E5-00, E52, E55, E71x, E72, E73 Mode, E75, N78, N79, N85, N86 8MP, N96, N96-3, X5-00, X5-01

• S60 5th
  5228, 5230, 5230 Nuron, 5235 Comes With Music Edition, 5250, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, C6-00, N97, N97 mini, X6, X6-00

• S80
  9300, 9300i, 9500

Hey all, it’s been a while since i’v properly blogged on “My Nokia Blog” but as I no longer have time to post as much as i’d like to on my own TheTekBlogger.com, I thought Jay wouldn’t mind me posting here!

One of the recent creations from the people over at Nokia Beta Labs yet again helps us to solve an issue that I’m sure we have all had at one point or another…”Why won’t my phone connect….AAAGGGHHHH”.

“Connectivity Analyzer” from Nokia Beta Labs does exactly what it says on the tin, it tries to figure out well (or not so well) your phone connects to either a Wireless LAN in your home or somewhere else, or Packet Data connections through the mobile network of your choice.

Here is what the developers have to say about it:

Nokia Connectivity Analyzer

Do you have hard times to understand why your WLAN connection is not working at home? Nokia Connectivity Analyzer provides three kinds of utilities to diagnose and analyze WLAN and Packet Data connections.

Connectivity Diagnostics Test

With a couple of clicks the application connects to a selected access point and performs a diagnostics test. In case of any problems with the connectivity, you are informed about it with troubleshooting tips.

Connection Observer

This graphical presentation of WLAN and packet data connectivity and events releated to it helps you to analyze WLAN networks and how roaming is performed e.g. when using VoIP. The gathered data can be stored into a .csv file for further analysis. More advanced users and application developers can also capture the IP traffic of the device into a pcap file.

Ping Utility

This utility helps you to perform ICMP-Echo ping tests to a given hostname or IP address. With this feature it is easy to test IP connection to a selected destination.

Download

http://betalabs.nokia.com/apps/nokia-connectivity-analyzer
(you have to sign in or register if you haven’t got an Ovi/Nokia account to download)

Compatibility

S60 3rd Edition,  Feature Pack 1

5700 XpressMusic, 6110 Navigator, 6110 Navigator, 6120 classic, 6121 classic, 6124 classic, 6290, E51, E63, E66, E71, E90 Communicator, N76, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, N95 8GB, N95-3 NAM

S60 3rd Edition,  Feature Pack 2

5320 XpressMusic, 5630 XpressMusic, 5730 XpressMusic, 6210 Navigator, 6220 classic, 6650 fold, 6700 slide, 6710 Navigator, 6720 classic, 6730 classic, 6760 slide, 6788, 6788i, 6790 slide, 6790 Surge, C5-00, C5-01, E5-00, E52, E55, E71x, E72, E73 Mode, E75, N78, N79, N85, N86 8MP, N96, N96-3, X5-00, X5-01

S60 5th Edition

5228, 5230, 5230 Nuron, 5235 Comes With Music Edition, 5250, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, C6-00, N97, N97 mini, X6, X6-00

Symbian^3

Nokia C6-01, C7-00, E7-00, N8

This Friday marks, for many people living in the US, the beginning of the holiday shopping season. As is customary, the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday known as Black Friday is a day when stores around the US offer huge deals on most of the products in their stores and Nokia USA is no exception. From Friday through til Monday, Nokia is offering reduced prices on all of their devices and even greater savings on accessories.   Read on for the highlight of this weekend’s sale.

Yes ladies and gents, the N8 is now going for under $500 unlocked. While not necessarily cheap, it represents a ~10% drop in price and as the image says, is only while supplies last. All colors are available and there’s free shipping to boot. Guess this is Nokia’s way of saying Merry Christmas.

That said, does anyone think the impending product placement of the N8 in the upcoming movie, Tron Legacy, the hiring of former Verizon VP of brand management Jerri DeVard and the recently leaked X7 (which looks like a shoe-in for a Tron /AT&T branded phone for the US) signals a greater push in the US market for Nokia.

For those that might say they’d be better served increasing sales in other markets, consider that the US market has of late been one of the highest adopters of high-end smartphones as a function of population size.