Archive for the ‘Nokia’ category

The open source Android finally made Symbian wrap off the cover from its codes and get into the Mobile OS war fully armed as the Symbian Foundation announced the much-awaited decision of making its code open source.

The move that had actually been taken in 2008 has finally reached its final destination and Symbian is now open for the developers to experiment. Symbian3, the new version of the OS, is now free and 100% open to all.  More than 330 million phones around the globe use Symbian but because of the new OSs launching in the market and falling market share of the Nokia handsets , Symbian had been losing its grounds in the industry.

“This is the largest open source migration effort ever,” Lee Williams executive director of the Symbian Foundation  told BBC News. “It will increase rate of evolution and increase the rate of innovation of the platform.”

“The dominant operating system provider out there is Symbian,” says Lee Williams , “and now we are offering developers the ability to do so much more.”

At present the Nokia primarily controls the development of Symbion but the Symbian foundation is now in plans to reduce Nokia’s input to “no more than 50%” by 2011.

The move will no doubt boost up the use of Symbian OS and it will yet again emerge as a potential opponent against the other mobile OSs.  2010 will be a very interesting and exciting year for mobile enthusiasts.

Image source: inf.u-szeged

The smartphone market had been heating up with the latest high tech and most sophisticated technology and there were many players fighting to mark a niche with their innovation. But as Apple and RIM were seen taking a lead in the industry, Nokia was loosing onto its glorious market records. But the Finnish company is back in the race as it reports of 132 percent increase in operating profit year-on-year and a positive sign in its growth statistics.

Nokia’s revenues from smartphones increased 26% from the previous quarter to 3.9 billion euros and the major credit goes to the sales of high-end smartphones, the N-series and E-series,  that grew from 8.9 million to 10.7 million between the third and fourth quarters of 2009.

“We grew our market share in smartphones in the fourth quarter, driven by the successful launch of new touch and Qwerty models,” said Nokia’s chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

“Our performance in smartphones, combined with continuing success in the emerging markets, helped us increase sales in our devices & services unit, both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.”

Nokia is well determined to win its shares back from its competitors and Apple takes the top spot in the list.

“Apple continues to be a great competitor, no doubt about that,” Mr. Kallasvuo said. “But we have our assets as well. Our strategy is in democratizing the smartphone in a massive way.”

Nokia reported a net profits of 882m euros for the last three months of 2009, a 53% increase on the 576m euros recorded a year earlier. However, Sony Ericsson and Motorola continued to struggle, selling 14.6 million and 12 million phones, respectively.

Image source: mobilestormer

Nokia Corp, the world’s largest mobile phone maker has announced a latest  flavor of touchscreen Nokia handset, Nokia X6 16GB.

Nokia X6 was initially announced in September and finally landed in the market December and its 16 GB model is slimmed down and made cheaper. It longer carries  Nokia’s Comes With Music service but its sizable on board storage still boasts enough space for 5,500 tracks.. Quite apparent it has half the memory than its predecessor. It will be rolled out in four new finishes: black, white, white with pink highlights and white with yellow highlights. The 16G variant will sell for £299 SIM-free with contract prices expected to be as low as £25 a month.

“Whether you just call and text or want a device that gives you music, movies and games at the touch of a button, the X6 is where it’s at this spring,” proclaims Nokia UK’s General Manager Mark Loughran. “Why carry around a music player or handheld game, when one phone can give you all the entertainment you need at a touch?”

Loaded with myriad multimedia features, the new sibling of Nokia X6 supports Ovi Store connectivity, a capacitive screen and runs Symbian S60 5th Edition as an OS. The phone boasts up to 18 days standby time, 11.5 hours talktime (GSM), 4.5 hours of video playback and a whopping 35 hours of music playback. Other specifications include a 5-megapixel photo snapper with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, which also sports video recording capabilities, as well as TV-out functions. It also features video editing capabilities.

Gamers will be happy to have the pre-loaded games including Spore by EA, Asphalt4 and DJ Mix Tour by Gameloft. It is available from today from www.nokia.co.uk/shop. So all  Nokia fans needn’t wait too long to grab a piece of their own.

Swedish streaming software Spotify has announced that its mobile phone app is now available on the Symbian platform, offering the unlimited music streaming service to a host of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung handsets. The Spotify Premium users will now be able to access their Spotify accounts on their devices, through a Symbian application, while free users will need to upgrade to take advantage of the deal.

The Symbian platform is used on almost 50 percent of mobiles worldwide, that leaves Spotify to cater a large audience of music lovers. Founded in 2008, the company is one of the world’s largest streaming websites.

The Nokia handsets chosen for the music delight include all E and N series devices  including the 5320, 5530 and 5800 XpressMusic phones by Nokia . The detailed list is here on Spotify website. To mention a few other phones which can access Spotify include the Sony Ericsson Satio and two Samsung devices: the GT-I7110 and i8 910 Omnia HD.

Spotify, is currently available in UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland and  France. It is also offered for the iPhone and devices on the Android platform. You can download the Spotify app directly on your device by going to  m.spotify.com or enter your number on the Spotify website and it’ll send you a download link.

With Nokia’s resources, expertise and cash behind the startup, this deal is  really exciting as Nokia gets a fantastic music service that it doesn’t have to run like its  Comes With Music , and Spotify gets a tonne of new happy users, and the phone-buyers get unlimited streaming music for free. As mobiles are pacing in as a handheld music store wherever you go, the mediums to grasp the world of rhythms and symphony too are offering multiple choices. It’s a treat for all music enthusiasts.

Image Source: http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/spotify_spotifylaunched.jpg