HTC’s roadmap leaks, Pocket-Lint award winners, and Nokia closes its London flagship
This week, we talk with the guys from London about HTC's phones slated to hit next year, plus Pocket-Lint's awards, and Nokia looks to be closing its Regent street flagship store... is it a sign of the economy, Nokia's health, or both? We ask Dan Sung and Duncan Geere from the site.
Opera releases Mobile 10 beta for Symbian
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The beta version of the Opera Mobile 10 browser for Symbian smartphones released yesterday with a redesigned interface and some noteworthy new features. The new Speed Dial displays preview thumbnails of favorite pages and appears when the user opens new tabs. Mobile 10 also includes the Mobile 9.7's Opera Turbo feature, which compresses larger files like images to boost performance when the internet connection is shaky. It's worth noting that Opera's mobile browsers are widely considered the strongest for Symbian-running BlackBerrys, and Mobile 10 represents another hurdle for RIM's hopes of a successful in-house browser of their own.
Nokia unveils phone for Chinese market
Nokia unveiled its first phone compatible with China’s proprietary 3G technology. The Nokia 6788 features a slider-style layout and a mirror finish display, with a goal to sell lower priced phones at a higher volume. Nokia, with a 38% global market share, spends over $60 billion in research and development. The Nokia 6788’s pricing has not been announced and ships later this year.
Mobile industry standardizes around 3.5mm audio jack in all devices
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After mini-USB has been declared as the standard connector in the future of cell phone charging, device manufacturers represented by the CTIA are pushing for 2012 as the year when the lowly 3.5mm jack becomes the standard audio connector for microphones and earphones. We're fans of the 3.5mm connection, and the 2012 target date is fairly conservative, considering the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and Apple already implement 3.5mm jacks in their phones.
Nokia delays unlimited music download service
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Nokia has delayed its "ComesWithMusic" service till at least 2010, meaning anyone looking to purchase a Nokia phone and download an unlimited number of tracks for 12-18 months will have to look elsewhere.
Nokia introduces “booklet” laptop
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Nokia, yes the cell phone company, has introduced its spin on the laptop / netbook, called the "Booklet." As you might expect, it includes a slot for a SIM card which makes it fit in with its cell phone brethren, but that's where the similarities end.
The machine has a 10.1 inch display, integrated A-GPS, HDMI output, WiFi, Bluetooth and other standards. OS wise, the unit runs Windows, with an integrated Ovi Store.
As is usual, Nokia hasn't provided pricing or availability, but Engadget notes we'll likely learn more on September 2nd at Nokia World.
Symbian to get its “Horizon” App Store
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The Symbian Foundation has announced its plans for its upcoming "Horizon" platform where developers can get assistance with technical development, language translation and distribution for free - "the only catch is that developers need to make really good apps", according to CNET News. Initially, the application submissions will be reviewed manually, as does Apple's App Store today, while the goal is to "automate this work allowing us to scale the program to include as many apps as possible."
Independence from carriers: When are unlocked phones coming?
It's long been the pipe dream of cell phone users to pick a phone independently from a plan, but thanks in part to a big subsidy from cell phone carriers, that day isn't here yet. Should we expect to pick phones separately from plans anytime soon, or will the subsidies stick around? We talk to Todd Haselton from LAPTOP and Jeff Bordeaux from Gadget Review about the situation, and things don't look to be changing anytime soon.
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Nokia Ovi Store: Rough start, rough road
Ever since Apple unveiled its fruit-flavored phone-de-jour, cell phone companies have been scrambling to catch up. Be it the multi-touch screen, the smooth multimedia access, or most recently, the App Store, many companies are struggling to keep pace. Today, Nokia entered its hat into the App Store ring, launching its own Ovi Store for any handset running the series 60 Symbian platform. But, will launching the app store be enough, or does Nokia have much more to prove? We talk to Paul Miller of Engadget, and Rory Reid of CNET UK. Paul thinks it's obviously a win for current S60 owners, and that Nokia essentially had to create an easy way to add applications or it'd be in for an even larger world of hurt. Unfortunately for Nokia, though, the new Ovi Store doesn't tip the scales in Nokia's favor just yet. Overseas, Rory's take is similar, but since there are millions upon millions of Europeans who still rock the Nokia-trademark ringtone, the Ovi Store's impact will be felt much more on that side of the pond. That is, if they can use the service. Rory reports that earlier this morning his experiences mirrored many others' frustration when trying to launch the store, and he couldn't even try it out till the early launch demand had died down.
Unfortunately, with today's marred launch of the Nokia Ovi Store, the Finnish-based mobile monolith has done little to disuade the public perception that the company has its ducks in a row, and more importantly, the store doesn't yet offer much innovation over the experiences of other App stores. That isn't to say, however, there's no hope for Nokia, but the Ovi Store alone isn't enough to fix the biggest problem: Phone selection. Cool-hunting smartphone-loving geeks have a lot of choices...like the upcoming BlackBerry Storm 2, Palm Pre, T-Mobile G1 and of course, the iPhone, and that means Nokia's execution has to be damned near perfect before the company is top-of-mind in the US. Nokia has a long, rough road to travel before Nokia phones dominate pockets on this side of the pond, and the Ovi Store's launch doesn't bode well for the journey.
Hackers looking for outdated Nokia phones
Nokia 1100 cell phones are fetching a rediculous $32k price in underground forums, and unfortunately for all of us, nobody knows exactly why, but some are guessing it has to do with that previously announced banking exploit.