Nokia’s newly appointed Mobile Solutions chief , Anssi Vanjoki, has penned an impassioned post over at Nokia Conversations today where he sets out his perspective on the company’s current position and future challenges. Describing the Finnish phone maker as “a challenger now,” rather than an incumbent, Vanjoki wants to introduce a “laser focus on quality,” with his two central aims being to reclaim Nokia’s reputation for high-end devices and to re-energize a flagging fan base. He specifically namedrops Ricky Cadden — who yesterday shut down Symbian-Guru because he’d lost faith with the company — and clearly considers grassroots support like that an important aspect of how Nokia’s success will be judged. As to the actual software front, Anssi confirms that the N8 will be the final Symbian^3 handset in the N-Series, but describes a Symbian^ 4 device in that family as a “strong possibility,” a note which he follows up with a wink (seriously)
While the various and sundry Android manufacturers are all scrambling (or casually strolling) toward official Android 2.2 updates for their manifold handsets, someone managed to get Google’s Froyo running on the Nokia N900 . Turns out, the two are a pretty great pair, with some super speedy browsing (like, really fast) and decent hardware support outside of an unfortunate lack of memory card support. Hit up the video after the break to see it in action, the browser starts kicking around the 4:45 mark. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Continue reading Hacked N900 blazes through Froyo Hacked N900 blazes through Froyo originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:07:00 EDT
Verizon Wireless customers in the market for a new handset may want to put the brakes on any purchases until next week. One of our insiders tipped us off to a sale on handsets that is slated to start on Monday, June 28th. The promotion extends to both smartphones and feature phones and includes the following handsets: LG enV Touch: $49.99 after $100 mail-in-rebate ($30 drop). Eligible for BOGO (buy one get, one same device).
Why, hello, you thing of questionable sexiness. What we’re looking at here is the Nokia N9 live and in the digital flesh. Negri Electronics, the people that leaked the images, are keeping mum about the specs of the device until they’re ready to publish their full review, but from the images we can clearly see that previous rumors were correct in that there’s an 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, front-facing camera with LED flash, sliding QWERTY keypad, nHD display (640×360), and support for the 850/1900 MHz bands of UMTS/HSDPA. It’s clear that this is an early prototype N9 considering its still running Symbian S60 — a platform that will now know will never again grace the Nseries line-up once the N8 is released — but we’re sure if and when Nokia launches the phone it’ll be running MeeGo.
Nokia is having a rough month. First, it saw itself forced to cut its outlook for the second quarter and the full year, and now The Register reports that the Finnish company has lost one of its top tech brains. Charles Davies, former Symbian CTO and notably the first employee and later managing director of Psion , is leaving the mobile juggernaut to take up an unknown role at navigation giant TomTom .
No real surprise here, but at least it’s now official. Nokia confirmed on Thursday that it will no longer offer Symbian-based handsets its Nseries line-up after the N8 is released. In its place, Nokia will be looking to MeeGo , an open source mash-up of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin.
iPhone I was at a bar the other night having a beer with friends, during which we talked about things guys talk about at bars. Would you rather have the power to see the future or to read someone’s mind? Who’s better, Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant? And, lastly, if you couldn’t use an iPhone , which phone would you use?
Mobile giant Nokia and car-systems specialists Clarion have announced a partnership to push a technology they are calling Terminal Mode . As the press release reads, “Terminal Mode, [is] a technology that will enable a totally new way of mobile devices and car infotainment systems to seamlessly work together.” This is a technology that Nokia and Clarion plan on supplementing with content from Nokia’s Ovi Store, and one hopes will be and “industry standard.” The idea is to create a back-end system, and front-end interface, that will become the standard for car manufactures, allowing both OEMs and consumers to customize and tailor their in-car experience. We’ve got the full release for you after the bounce.
Nokia’s Executive VP for Markets, Anssi Vanjoki, announced that all Nokia smartphones will include Near Field Communication (NFC) beginning in 2011. The announcement was made yesterday during a keynote speech at the Mobey Forum in Helsinki, Finland. Some of NFC’s potential uses include: mobile payments, mobile ticketing, P2P setup, and RFID tag reading.
Sure, you can already download MeeGo 1.0 and try it out on your netbook or N900 , but Nokia also has some grander designs for the mobile operating system, and a new Handset Interaction Guidelines document published on (and then pulled from) the official MeeGo wiki has now offered some more details on exactly what’s in store. Among the highlights are confirmation of support for both portrait and landscape keyboards, and some pretty strong evidence of WebOS and Android influences, including a task manager that’s similar to WebOS’s card system but becomes a grid view with a multitouch pinch, and a notification system and taskbar that are apparently similar to Android’s — not to mention some centralized account management. There’s pages and pages of details beyond that, however, so hit up the link below to dive in (courtesy of Google Cache, of course). [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Meego handset UI guidelines offer details aplenty, suggestion of WebOS, Android influences originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:36:00 EDT
No, we’re not revealing some great hidden feature here — Nokias have been able to pair with Bluetooth devices since pretty much forever — but throw a complete set of desktop implements together with the Finnish company’s greatest new phone , and sparks of interest do fly. In this case, a pair of keen fellas have hooked a portable keyboard and a Logitech mouse up to the N8 and had some fun videotaping their exploits. If you’re thinking this would make a pretty killer combination with the N8 plugged into an HDTV, well… you’d be right .
Nokia is in a pickle. They’re one of the few companies that make devices that span the sub 100 EUR part of the market, to over 500 EUR with flagship smartphones, and over 5000 EUR if you include the Vertu lineup. Unlike the other companies that have such a wide product portfolio, Nokia doesn’t have a profitable secondary business. Ovi is failing, and Nokia Siemens Networks is like an alcoholic freshman whose away at college and is constantly asking mom and dad for money.
Um, yeah. Let’s just put this out there: the image above was grabbed from a video that could be an early, leaked teaser for the N9 , Nokia’s first handset to run the MeeGo OS. Could be. The production quality of the promo is certainly up to snuff and the industrial design of the slider itself features just enough N8 to make the whole thing seem very plausible.
Well, hey, Nokia just officially launched the X5 in Singapore, apparently as a followup to the Twist and the latest chubby square slider to hit in the past few months after the the Motorola Flipout and Kin One . No, we’re not sure why this form factor is suddenly a Thing either. This guy is actually Nokia’s second X5 –a China-only X5 with a totally different design was announced in April, so that’s nice and confusing. We don’t have an official spec sheet on this new X5 yet, but we’re told it runs Symbian S60, and has a five megapixel camera, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube integration, as well as some sort of shake-based notification feature we don’t really understand
Lovely home except for those pesky leaks . This Nokia house built (circa 2010) upon on a foundation of Symbian with a MeeGo roof is also sporting an interesting looking S-series smokestack. Most of the building blocks we’ve already seen including the flagship N8 . The N9 is almost certainly Nokia’s followup to the N900 and Espoo’s first handset to feature it’s new MeeGo OS.
