You'll remember that, in addition to Symbian and the low-end Series 40, Nokia also now supports MeeGo, the development of the old Maemo system and Intel's Moblin. The first MeeGo conference was held last week, in Dublin, and you may be interested in this conference roundup over on our sister site, All About Meego, with some interesting and personal accounts of the event from members of the community.
Symbian's SEE show (Symbian Exchange and Exposition) takes place over the 9th and 10th of November in Amsterdam. Over the next two days we'll be bringing you the key news, views and information. This news story contains our live coverage, where you can see the latest photos and text updates; you can also interact with the team, asking questions and adding your own thoughts. Alternatively you can keep up to date by following our @aas account on Twitter, where we will be posting text updates and photos.
Buoyed up by the recent SYMBEOSE funding, there will be a distinct air of optimism at SEE 2010, Symbian's annual two day show, this year in Amsterdam. Rafe will be there on the show floor and reporting on any announcements on the 9th and 10th November. The keynotes look like being more important than ever in the current economic and technological climate - I've already quoted the full list of speakers, moderators and panellists, but listed below are the main keynote speakers - expect to see Rafe and his trusty laptop near the front on the day!
Possibly of most interest to developers and those 'in' the industry, I wanted to flag up that, despite all recent announcements and speculation, The Symbian Foundation's SEE 2010 event takes place on the 9th and 10th of November at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, billed as "the only event dedicated to bringing the Symbian community together and providing unique knowledge and insight from industry experts". Attendance is free to all, as usual. Some more details below.
Since before the launch of the Nokia N95, the handset manufacturers have been pushing the idea that “Location is the next big thing”, not just in mobile but over the whole Internet. With GPS chips being installed into hundreds of millions of handsets; with the Web 2.0 backbone of everyone sharing everything; with developers and the venture capitalists throwing money at the social web... what could go wrong?
Now this is the sort of marketing I'd like to see Nokia do more of. Working with a band to both enhance their life on the road and also show off what the smartphone can do. In this case the band 'Kill It Kid' and the Nokia N8 - the introductory video is embedded below. A dozen of these, all with different popular bands in different countries, all going viral among the youth, and there'd be no need to mess around with 'X factor' apps, I reckon....
No, not that gravity. Gravity the much-praised social network client for Symbian. Here's an excellent 17 minute video interview (and written summary) with its creator, Jan Ole Suhr, taken at Nokia World 2010. Did you, for example, know that Gravity was originally intended to be a little freebie giveaway to attract visitors to Jan's other commercial products? The interview also answers whether Jan is worried about Nokia's new native Social application or about a future forced rewrite in Qt.
In case you didn't watch the two-plus hour live streaming of the Nokia World 2010 keynotes yesterday, don't worry, for you can watch the best bits at your convenience, below, a special edited version from the Nokia Conversations team. In addition to footage of the main speakers, you also get to see lots of the attendees and their devices - bonus points for picking out any familiar faces! The main speakers featured are Niklas Savander, Anssi Vanjoki and Purnima Kochikar.
At the Nokia Developer Summit today, Nokia unveiled a number of major improvements in its developer tools, including "significant enhancements to the Nokia Qt (SDK), resulting in a 70 percent reduction in the number of lines of code required when developing for Symbian", improvements to the Ovi Store "including a new look and feel, making it faster and making apps easier to find", plus a "lower barrier of entry and increased monetization opportunities for developers, including free Java and Symbian signing, in-app purchase, improved revenue share, and advanced developer analytics".
At Nokia World 2010 today, Nokia introduced the E7-00, running Symbian^3, a high-end hybrid (touch and QWERTY) device, with a clamshell form factor, that recalls both the N97 and Nokia's popular Communicator series. It is the new flagship for Nokia's enterprise-focused Eseries device category. The standout feature here is the form factor with its four line QWERTY keyboard. Also onboard is an 8 megapixel camera, a 4" 'Clear Black' AMOLED screen, 16GB of internal memory, integrated GPS and comprehensive connectivity options. The E7 will be available in Q4 2010 at a price of €495 before taxes and subsidies. Read on for pics, specs, opinion and some videos.
Nokia World 2010 starts today and the team is on the ground to bring you live coverage from Nokia's premier event. Over the next two days we'll be bringing you the key news, views and information. This news story contains our live coverage, where you can see the latest images and text updates; you can also interact with the team, asking questions and adding your own thoughts. Alternatively you can keep up to date by following our @aas account on Twitter, where we will be posting text updates and images.
In All About Symbian Insight 130, we start with an update on the ongoing Conspiracy for Good transmedia project. David Gilson then talks us through his first impressions of the Nokia C6. Rafe reports back from Nokia's N8 Developer Day in London, including details of the new Ovi Store client, which is expected to debut on the N8. Finally Steve leads a discussion on Q2's mobile device shipment numbers. You can listen to AAS Insight 130 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Rafe's at Nokia's N8 Developer Launch event at The Century Club in London today and you can follow his thoughts and reporting via the official @aas Twitter account. The event aims to "provide an introduction to Qt and the Nokia N8 - complete with live developer workshops at all levels and an opportunity for some hands on time with the device itself." Not that Rafe's a stranger to the N8 - see his extensive hands-on gallery here, but we're sure he'll come back with some interesting new titbits anyway. More links and a pic below.
Nokia has released their Q2 2010 results, reporting an operating profit of €295 million, with net sales €10.0billion (up 1% Year-on-Year). Nokia's device and service division's profits were €643 million, down 16% year on year. Margins in devices and services were 9.5% (down 2.7% YoY and down 2.6% QoQ). Converged devices sales (smartphones) were significantly up, at 24 million, compared with 16.9 million units in Q2 2009 (so up 42% YoY) and compared with 21.5 million units in Q1 2010 (up 12%, QoQ). As such, worldwide smartphone marketshare was 41%, stable sequentially and year on year. Full story and comments below.
As a follow-up to Apple's emergency iPhone 4 press conference yesterday, in which Steve Jobs claimed that all smartphones suffered from similar reception problems when held tightly (and also erroneously quoted Nokias as having "stickers on the back that say 'Don't touch here'"), Nokia has apparently responded with a statement, quoted below.
