January 13th, 2010

iPhone Doubles Up Android On Mobile Ad Click Rates; Both Destroyed By Symbian

When you think about mobile advertising, you might think the iPhone or Android are the hot platforms (thanks to ads like this). But you’d be wrong.

Some new December data from the mobile advertising company Smaato suggests that it’s actually Symbian that kills both the iPhone and Android. Now, I know what you’re thinking: that’s because Nokia, despite the buzz surrounding the sexier smartphone… → Read More

December 16th, 2009

TuneWiki hits Nokia store and integrates with FlyScreen

[Israel/US] TuneWiki, an app that brings music streaming, a lyrics database and music videos from YouTube to one social, customizable media player (iTunes link) has been pretty popular on the iPhone. And now it’s just gone live on the Nokia Ovi store.

Of note is the addition of a ‘Follow’ feature which is only in the Nokia app.

In addition FlyScreen, the customisable lockscreen which features… → Read More

November 30th, 2009

Bumpy week for Nordic handset makers

[Finland/Sweden] Last week was somewhat of a roller-coaster ride for the Nordic mobile phone companies. It started with a hurricane of tweets and blogposts as Spotify was launched for Nokia phones with Symbian. There was also some confusion about whether or not Nokia would continue using Symbian or switch to Linux based Maemo. Nokia later denied that they are abandoning Symbian for Maemo. → Read More

November 23rd, 2009

Spotify lands on Symbian phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung

[Sweden] The much – perhaps justifiably – hyped music streaming service Spotify has extended its mobile reach significantly today with the release of an app for phones powered by the Nokia-led Symbian operating system.

This follows earlier clients for both iPhone and Android and means that the service will now be accessible on millions more handsets from Nokia, obviously, along with Sony Ericsson… → Read More

September 24th, 2009

Waze Turns Turn-By-Turn Navigation And Mapmaking Into A Free Game

Turn-by-turn navigation was one of the features that iPhone users were most looking forward to with the release of the iPhone 3.0 software. Unfortunately, as users quickly found out, turn-by-turn meant either significantly more expensive apps, or a monthly fee. Not only does Waze do it for free, but it offers an interesting gaming element to boot.

The reason Waze can be free while other… → Read More

August 13th, 2009

Mobile phone sales down, smartphone sales up

According to Gartner, worldwide mobile phone sales are down about 6% from the same time last year; yet the volume of smartphone sales has increased almost 30% in the same time frame. No doubt the uptick in smartphone sales is due to the release of cool new devices like the iPhone 3GS, the Palm Pre, and the various Android phones coming to market. As expected, Nokia remains king of the hill in… → Read More

July 6th, 2009

Nokia denies plans to debut Android handset

About that Android-based Nokia touch-screen device the Guardian was squawking about; it’s not true, says a Nokia rep by the name of Joseph Gallo. re: Nokia’s rumored Android phone and you can quote me on this: We (Nokia) are NOT making an Android smartphone. Symbian is our platform of choice when making smartphones. → Read More

June 16th, 2009

Symbian not in a hurry to take on smartphones

Apparently they’re not too worried over there among the Symbianites. Despite growing pressure from ever-more-inexpensive smartphones, they don’t seem to care much about competing. Maybe it’s overconfidence from years on the top, or maybe they have an ace up their sleeve. I think it’s a little of both; they don’t think they need an ace, because they’ve seen what… → Read More

June 9th, 2009

The Nokia N97 hits Nokia Stores for $700 today

We knew it was coming and sure enough, the Nokia N97 is now available for $700 at Nokia Stores everywhere. 700 bones will net you Nokia‘s flagship touchscreen device, unlocked and ready to make iPhones jealous everywhere. Well, maybe not the last part, but it’s still a solid device and worthy successor to the N95/N96. → Read More

June 9th, 2009

The Nokia N97 hits Nokia Stores for $700 today

We knew it was coming this month and sure enough, the Nokia N97 is now available for $700 at Nokia Stores everywhere. 700 bones will net you Nokia‘s flagship touchscreen device, unlocked and ready to make iPhones jealous everywhere. Well, maybe not the last part, but it’s still a solid device and worthy successor to the N95/N96. → Read More

March 13th, 2009

Symbian remains most dominant mobile OS in the world

According to Gartner’s final 2008 “Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System” stats, reigning mobile OS champ, Symbian, remains on top of the world with a whopping 52.4% majority market share. Although that number is down over 11% from 2007, Symbian still maintains a healthy 35.8% lead over its nearest competitor, Research In Motion. (chart after the break) → Read More

February 16th, 2009

Expect 2-3 Android handsets from Huawei this year

Huawei has big plans for 2009. The OEM handset maker plans to launch two to three different Android phones and maybe even a Symbian and LiMo handset all this year. Even with the global economic doom and gloom? Wowzers! → Read More

February 8th, 2009

Nokia Shaping Up To Launch Its Very Own App Store?

Our sister site MobileCrunch may be convinced that not every company needs an app store, but for Nokia to launch a central platform for distribution and sales of micro-programs developed for the Symbian OS, it would make a whole lotta sense.

And if what Eldar Murtazin, editor of Mobile-review.com (both blogs are in Russian) writes is true, then that’s exactly what the Finnish juggernaut in mobile… → Read More

January 27th, 2009

Living in the past: Commodore 64 on a Symbian phone

Ah for those thrilling days of yesteryear, when gaming was 8-bit, and the world was blocky. If you thrill at the thought of having a portable Commodore 64, and you have a Symbian phone, then your dreams are coming true. → Read More

January 14th, 2009

Dell set to unleash killer smartphone?

The smartphone market used to be reserved just to business types and nerds, but now everyone wants an iPhone or Palm Pre; Dell likely wants a piece of that action and might have a smartphone ready. It could be unveiled as soon next month at 3GSM or the Mobile World Congress. But does Dell have the goods needed to make a killer smartphone that stands out from the rest? → Read More

January 14th, 2009

Dell set to unleash killer smartphone?

The smartphone market used to be reserved just to business types and nerds, but now everyone wants an iPhone or Palm Pre; Dell likely wants a piece of that action and might have a smartphone ready. It could be unveiled as soon next month at 3GSM or the Mobile World Congress. But does Dell have the goods needed to make a killer smartphone that stands out from the cool kids? The Palm Pre made a huge… → Read More

December 12th, 2008

MIT students build mobile applications in 13 weeks

MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.” What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the… → Read More

December 11th, 2008

Symbian to be open source in 2 years

It’s old news that Nokia bought Symbian, the software used to power many mobile phones today. The deal finally closed, and now the Symbian Foundation is officially in charge of Symbian development. There are currently ten participants in the Symbian Foundation, though membership is open to anyone with $1,500 to spare. The Symbian Foundation has big plans for the platform. Read on for a… → Read More

September 3rd, 2008

Can the iPhone Beat Symbian OS?

Symbian on Tuesday released its second quarter financial data. The Nokia-owned company said that it bested last year’s sales mark with 19.6 million units sold. That may seem high, but over the past six months, 159 different Symbian OS-based mobile devices hit store shelves, compared to just a handful from RIM and one from Apple.

The most glaring element of Symbian’s release was that it only… → Read More

September 2nd, 2008

Samsung accepts Nokia's offer for Symbian buyout

In preparation for taking Symbian open-source and royalty free for Symbian Foundation partners, Nokia has spent the last few months buying out all of the other shareholders. As of this morning, the job is done; Nokia has announced that the last shareholder involved, Samsung, has accepted their offer. The cumulative total for all of the buyouts will set Nokia back around $410 million. That’s… → Read More

August 1st, 2008

Skyfire Brings Full Browser Experience To Nokia S60 Phones (200 Private Beta Invites)

Throw out that WAP browser on your cell phone. We are quickly approaching a point where a full browser experience is available on our mobile devices. And it is not just the iPhone. A startup called Skyfire is in some respect even further along than Apple in bringing the entire Web to your phone. Its mobile browser lets you slide Web pages around and zoom in like with the mobile version of Safari. → Read More

July 31st, 2008

Review: Nokia E66

The Nokia E66 will be hitting the U.S. in the third quarter with an unsubsidized price of $500. While that price may sound like it’s a bit (or a lot) on the high side, the phone actually has a fair number of tricks up its sleeve and will likely appeal mostly to corporate users who may never see the price tag to begin with. Lest you think this device is all business, there’s a unique (and… → Read More

July 22nd, 2008

Leaked screen shots of the S60 Touch UI

As thrilling as leaked photos usually are, it looks like the screen shots of Nokia’s S60 Touch UI have so far failed to excite. Since the photos apparently weren’t taken from a device, but from the PC-based theme editor, its hard to say what revolution Touch will really bring to S60. But from here it looks like the new Touch UI will be pretty similar to the regular UI, only with a few bigger… → Read More

July 22nd, 2008

Symbian ready to make mistakes

Efficiency was the force behind the recent decision to take Symbian open source, and not concerns about competition from Google’s Andriod or mobile Linux, John Forsyth, vice president of strategy for Symbian, reportedly said at the Open Mobile Exchange conference in Portland, Ore. Forsyth said that despite Symbian’s 60% market share, lack of research and development efficiency, “was one of… → Read More

July 22nd, 2008

Nokia N96 on sale this September (in UK, at least)

A British cellphone carrier has confirmed that the Nokia N96 will be released there in September. This isn’t a rumor, or from some guy who knows some guy or anything, but comes from a “Christmas in July” event held all the way in the UK. The mobile operator is 3, by the way. At current exchange rates, Americans should be prepared to fork over quite a bit of cash to nab this one, whenever… → Read More

July 7th, 2008

Review: Nokia N78

Nokia’s N-Series is an odd amalgam of high-tech and low, melding some of the best smartphone technology with phones that haven’t changed much since the first proto-Finns heaved their bark boats onto the rocky beaches of Soumenlinna and began fashioning crude cellphones out of cork and shale. Much has changed about the Nokia line over the years but all of the phones are refreshingly… → Read More

June 25th, 2008

Better a dead Symbian than an open one

Livin’ on the high end. TheRegister makes an interesting point: Symbian is dead. Once Nokia bought and decided to open-source it you can be certain that it will end up in low-end, developing market phones and not any of Nokia’s flagship models. It can’t simply because the OS and UI are twenty years old and far too klunky to offer any wow to a jaded populace. → Read More

June 24th, 2008

The state of mobile OS openness

Open operating systems, for most folks, means that the operating system is essentially free. The average computer user knows that Linux is free, as in beer, while Windows costs money. The case is the same for mobile OSes although, until very recently, the idea of purposely using an open OS has been a fairly nebulous concept. To be clear open mobile OSes have been around for years, starting most… → Read More

June 24th, 2008

The State of Mobile OS Openness

Open operating systems, for most folks, means that the operating system is essentially free. The average computer user knows that Linux is free, as in beer, while Windows costs money. The case is the same for mobile OSes although, until very recently, the idea of purposely using an open OS has been a fairly nebulous concept. To be clear open mobile OSes have been around for years, starting most… → Read More

June 24th, 2008

Nokia to buy Symbian, plans to open platform

Nokia announced today that it “plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own”  and then open the Symbian Foundation along with other device manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson, Motorola, AT&T, LG, and others. The foundation will be open to all developers and "will provide a unified platform with common UI framework” under the… → Read More