News headlines - Editorial Thoughts
Nokia Q2 2010 results - profits down but smartphone sales up
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.
Introducing the 'superphone'?
Rob Glaser has a new word – 'superphone' – to describe the latest batch of mobile phones on the market. Given the fun we’ve had defining the smartphone in the last few years, adding a new level to the nomenclature might seem a cheap marketing move, but it has allowed Glaser, chairman of RealNetworks, to expand his view on where mobile technology is moving. Read on for my thoughts.
Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki says 'the fightback starts now', champions both Symbian and MeeGo
Anssi Vanjoki, marking his first day as Nokia's Head of Mobile Solutions, and in the face of recent widespread criticism of Nokia's high end device performance and strategy, has come out with some hard hitting statements in a feature on Nokia's Conversations blog. He underlines the importance of Symbian for Nokia, suggests that a Symbian^4 powered Nseries device is 'a very strong possibility', says that, for consumers, MeeGo will mean having 'true computing power in your pocket' and that MeeGo gives Nokia the ability 'to take mobile technology beyond the smartphone'. Read on for further details.
Yay for the fiddler - but have a rock-solid fallback
With my tongue slightly in cheek and with the news that sheds(!) are now firmly back in fashion, I wanted to mention a growing trend in the tech world - that of fiddling, customising and tweaking. Of devices, of their firmware and of their software. It's all huge fun, of course, but if you want to keep your life on track and blood pressure down then I'd suggest having a second, fallback device, also synced to everything you know and love...
The changing shape of Nseries - no scaremongering, just the facts
Nokia's quoted comments regarding the future of its Nseries devices have been causing much comment in the media in last few days. This editorial puts some perspective into the story - Nseries devices only represent around 12% of Nokia's Symbian portfolio and the evolution of the brand towards Maemo/MeeGo had been signposted since Autumn 2009. Moreover it is vital to understand that MeeGo and Symbian are complimentary parts of Nokia's overall software strategy. Read on for further analysis of the evolution of Nseries and a number of salient facts.
Nokia fights back with new developer offerings
Nokia has made a number of developer announcements today, which significantly strengthen their developer services and offerings. Perhaps most interesting is news of a public beta service that allows developers to get their content Symbian Signed at no cost (compared to a previous first time signing cost of up to $215). Also important is the news that individuals can now register as Ovi Publishers (previously restricted to companies) and that the Ovi Store is now accepting Qt-based applications. Finally, and the most significant in the long term, is the first full release of the Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 and the accompanying Nokia Smart Installer (previously in beta). Read on for additional details.
Applications - The new way to advertise
The modern marketeer has their work cut out for them with smartphones - the traditional methods don't always work, so it's a good thing that Nokia's ecosystem is helping them find a new way to get their message out and reinforced with their customers. The Ovi Store and the App Wizard are two new elements in the quest to try and find a way to make advertising on smartphones effective... through applications. Read on for some thoughts.
Pre-alpha MeeGo for tablets demo
New on YouTube is a video demo showcasing the upcoming MeeGo for Tablet User Experience (UI). This was first seen at the recent Computex trade show running on a Quanta Redvale tablet and a number of other devices. The video includes an explanation of the multi-column homescreen, a quick look at the Photo and Music applications, a demo of HD video playback and a quick demo of Intel's AppUp app store. In addition to embedding the video in the full story we have also broken this video down in detail to offer you some insight into the MeeGo 1.1 tablet user interface. Read on for further details.
Video: NRC demo - Nokia Image Space mobile client
As part of Nokia's 'Open for Ideas' event, I had the opportunity to attend the Tampere Innovation Experience @ Demola day, which included a showcase more than 40 research projects that had been guided by open innovation principles. I teamed up with The Really Mobile Project's Ben Smith to shoot three videos of NRC (Nokia Research Centre) demos. The first video covers the Nokia Image Space research, with a demo of the Image Space mobile client on a Nokia N900.
Video: Tour of Nokia's Experience Lounge
During a recent visit to Nokia's Espoo (Helsinki) offices, I had the opportunity to look round Nokia's Experience Lounge, which showcases all of Nokia's latest products and services - from Ovi Maps and Nokia Messaging to the latest Nokia handsets. As an additional bonus, tucked away in one corner of the room, is a set of shelves that contain one of almost every Nokia phone model ever produced. So how to share this with loyal readers? Film a walkabout of course!
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