Of course, the resources to do all this for much more of the world's urban areas would be enormous, but we'll settle for this as both a good start and a good demo of Nokia's 3D mapping technology.

And, just to be topical, here's London's ExCeL centre, as viewed in Maps 3D in Chrome on my desktop:

This is where the AAS team will be for the next 48 hours!

Nokia Conversations just announced that Maps 3D is being implemented in WebGL, which means that soon you'll be able to enjoy all this without having to install a plug-in into your web browser:

First of all, a nice surprise for the location fans among you: the wonderful Nokia Maps 3D is going to be 100% 3D and 0% plugin. If you want to give it a try, it’s been available for a while. All you need to do is point your browser (only Chrome at the moment, other browsers are being tested) tohttp://maps.nokia.com/webgl

There also seems to be more of an emphasis on video material, which is very much in line with the modern trend and is not dissimilar to what I did on the main Phones Show web site last year. Here's today's front page, with the (re) launch video and showing the notifications 'bar' in action:

There's an innovative newspaper-like headlines ('Latest') page, in which graphics appear as you roll your mouse over each headline:

Once you get into the regular content, here's the new standard layout (below). Nokia were at pains to point out that it has been able to get rid of the usual top menu bar, leading readers straight into the content. Articles have their own individual 'title' bar, leading to related content (e.g. "Photo gallery, Video").

Having a thumbnail of the author is a nice touch, as is being able to contact them directly. There are also stats on each article, the usual social sharing buttons and a variety of ways to filter/show other content:

All in all, a nice job, I'd say. Of course, it's very much an official site and there are no truly independent or unbiased articles, but there's usually plenty of interest, on the Symbian, Series 40, N9 or Windows Phone fronts.

Here's the launch video, which goes through all the design features and functionality of the facelifted site:

Non-IFRS operating profit was €252 million (down 60% YoY and down 36% QoQ), with Devices and Services non-IFRS profit at €22 million, and margins at 4.7%. Non-IFRS results exclude special items for all periods and can be seen as measures of underlying performancee. In Q3 2011, these include charges related to restructuring (e.g. €111m in Devices and Services due to restructuring and associated costs) and a variety of charges related to acquisitions and similar (e.g. €24 million because of Accenture deal). 

Nokia's overall mobile device volumes were 106.6 million units, down 3% year on year, but up 20% sequentially. This was led by a strong sales of mobile phones (89.8 million units, up 8% year on year and 25% quarter on quarter) and the halt in the fall of smartphones shipments. However, Nokia is now the number 3 smartphone manufacturer, behind Apple and Samsung, as the small growth in shipment numbers (1%) was significantly behind overall market trends. Nonetheless, the slide in smartphone sales in the last two quarters has been halted, with leaner channel inventory being a key factor this quarter.

The stronger sales have, in part, been driven by lowering the price of devices, as indicated by a fall in the average sale price per device. However, an increase in the devices and services margin suggests an improvement in operational efficiency, which means profits have not been impacted by the price cutting.

While the overall results do remain relatively weak, they do show signs of improvement, suggesting that Nokia is beginning to rebound from the poor performance on the last 12 months. Attention will now turn to the launch of the company's first Windows Phone devices, which are expected next week at the Nokia World conference. However, they may only have a small impact on Q4 results, as the new devices are expected to be available only in a limited number of markets in 2011. A much greater impact is expected in Q1 and Q2 of 2012.

A Reuters poll of analysts prior to the release of the results predicted an underlying loss of €23 million, with smartphone shipments of 15.9 millon. Both the underlying profit and smartphone sales were therefore ahead of expectations. In response to the news, Nokia's share price is up approximately 10%.
   

Stephen Elop said:

I am encouraged by the progress we made during Q3, while noting that there are still many important steps ahead in our journey of transformation. With each step, you will see us methodically implement our strategy, pursuing steady improvement through a period that has known transition risks, while also dealing with the various unexpected ups and downs that typify the dynamic nature of our industry. During the third quarter, we continued to take the action necessary to drive the structural changes required for Nokia's long-term success.

I am encouraged by our progress around the first Nokia experience with Windows Phone, and we look forward to bringing the experience to consumers in select countries later this quarter. We then intend to systematically increase the number of countries and launch partners during the course of 2012.

In summary, in Q3 we started to see signs of early improvement in many areas, but we must continue to focus on consistent progress so that we can move Nokia through the transformation and deliver superior results to our shareholders.

  
Looking forward, Nokia expects its non-IFRS Devices and Services operating margin in Q4 to be between 1% and 5%, suggesting Nokia is feeling more positive about Q4. The outlook is based on a number of factors, including competitive industry dynamics, an expected increase in device sales, greater than expected operating expenditure as new products launch (suggesting aggressive marketing ahead) and the macro economic environment.

Market context

This chart shows smartphone shipments by manufacturer for the last few years. The figures for Q3 2011 include some estimates as some manufacturers have not reported their numbers, nor have the numbers been fully normalised between manufacturers. In particular, the Samsung numbers are uncertain (indicated by the dotted line), but most estimates suggest it is now the number one smartphone manufacturer. Nonetheless, they do give an indicative guideline.

These figures can also be expressed as % market share, which shows comparitive performance over time.

Points of interest   

• Average selling price (across all devices) was €51, down from €65 in Q3 2010 and down from €62 in Q2 2011, reflecting an increase in the proportion of mobile phone devices (low cost) in sales.
    
• The average selling price of Nokia's smartphones was €131, down from €133 in Q3 2010 and down from €142 in Q2 2011. 
    
• Nokia shipped 18 million dual SIM devices.

See also

Nokia Results

Earlier results: Q2 2011, Q1 2011, Q4 2010, Q3 2010, Q2 2010, Q1 2010, Q4 2009, Q3 2009, Q2 2009, Q1 2009, Q4 2008, Q3 2008, and Q2 2008

What is NFC and how does it work?

As the name Near Field Communications implies, it's a wireless technology that only works over a very 'near'/short distance, usually a centimetre or two. And, typically, this involves touching ('tapping') your device to the tag or chip (since you have to allow for the bulk of the tag container and phone body). NFC operates at 13.56 MHz and at data rates ranging up to 424 kbps - technical readers will spot that this isn't very fast, but then the amount of information transferred by NFC is typically very small - less than a kilobyte - any larger transfers are handed off to another wireless technology, e.g. Bluetooth (see the use examples below).

Just as with other proximity card technologies, NFC works using magnetic induction between two loop antennas located within each other's 'near field', effectively forming an 'air-core transformer'. In other words, power can be transferred ('induced') in an otherwise passive, unpowered chip (usually referred to as the 'target'), after which basic RF data transfer can occur. So NFC targets can be simple tags, stickers or cards that do not require batteries and can be extremely small and thin.

Such targets are effectively read-only, with information programmed in at the time of manufacture, or at least at the time they ship. Typical information in a NFC target would be an Internet URL (e.g. a Facebook page or web site), but almost any data is possible, depending on how widely compatible with real world devices the target is intended to be.

In addition, the target can of course be powered too, so-called 'peer to peer' communication. For example, two smartphones, or a smartphone and a headset or other accessory. In this 'active' mode, both the initiator and the target device communicate by alternately generating their own 'near' radio frequency modulations. I.e. they take turns sending information - each device deactivates its RF field while it is waiting for data so that it can pick up modulations from its NFC partner.

Interestingly, because of the 'near' bit, i.e. the two devices have to be touching, there's no need for 'pairing' as we're used to in the Bluetooth world. In other words, there's no need to confirm that you've got the right devices, tag or accessory, since it's pretty obvious. NFC is also more suitable for letting devices communicate in a crowded environment like a tech event - a situation where Bluetooth can fall down flat because of the sheer number of pairable devices within 'range'.

What can you do with NFC right now and what will it enable in the future?

[Implicit in all this is that you know where the NFC aerial is in your smartphone - usually at the top edge or embedded in the battery cover on the back - you have to get this right because of the tiny distances needed.]

Tap for information

The most basic NFC implementation, with a passive tag, usually embedded in a poster/sticker, in a business card or badge. The tag is indicated with a logo or arrow or other instruction and you tap the appropriate bit of your NFC-equipped phone to the tag. Usually an Internet address of some kind is indicated - showing product information, voucher codes for the establishment you're in, information on exhibits in museums and galleries, social updates for a person or company, or kicking off a 'check-in' on Facebook or similar. The use cases do extend to sending automated SMS (e.g. for getting info, managing ticketing, accessing entertainment services, etc.), to transferring a contact's vCard, or passing on application specific code (e.g. unlocking hidden levels in a game or getting a voucher).

Note that a tag can contain more than one piece of information (within the byte limits already mentioned), there are protocols in place for delimiting which bit is which. See the RTD (Record Type Definition) and NDEF (NFC Forum Data Exchange Format) specifications.

Tap to pair

The simplest of the active use cases for NFC, here you use the technology to help your smartphone pair with a Bluetooth accessory (e.g. speakers or headphones). Again, the usual PIN-based pairing for Bluetooth is averted because the proximity involved in NFC is the tech's assurance that the right phone is being paired with the right gadget. You simply march up to the accessory, tap it against your phone and bingo, the two are paired (as in the speaker demo video below). For more on this, see the NFC Forum Connection Handover Specification.

Tap to configure

Along the same lines, but with Wi-fi, it will soon be possible to achieve instant configuration for a wireless network by simply tapping the NFC-enabled router with your phone. 

Tap to share

There are two scenarios here, both involving two smartphones. The first and most generic uses LLCP (Logical Link Control Protocol) to use NFC to initiate a generic object file transfer (e.g. a photo), with the main data transfer taking place using Bluetooth or Wi-fi (remember that NFC isn't fast enough for data bearing). Typically you'd tap your phone to someone else's and the recipient would get a prompt to accept whatever was on your screen at the time (again, perhaps a photo or small video).

The second scenario uses SNEP (Simple NDEF Exchange Protocol) at an application level, allowing you and a friend to tap phones to share specific, detailed information. Again it depends on the application and which screen is in the foreground, but typically you might transfer contact information, your Twitter handle, a Calendar appointment or an in-game object of some kind. For example, the Angry Birds game has a NFC-aware version in which you can tap others' phones to pass on (or gain) level unlock objects.

Tap to pay or gain access

This is the sexiest and most high profile use case for NFC but it's also the hardest to implement because you need an end-to-end commerce system. It's easy to arrange to tap your phone against a payment terminal (e.g. at a shop or train station), but what will the (on its own, dumb) NFC reader do with your credit card information? What will it do with your registered identity? We're just starting to see end-to-end NFC payment arrive in the real world, thanks to companies like Barclaycard, Orange, and Google (with their Wallet system and signed up partners). In each case the starting point is a dedicated application on the phone that passes on the appropriate payment information via NFC to a service which knows what to expect.

It's very early days though. In the future, most card issuers will be on board, most online payment systems will be NFC aware and most shops will accept 'contactless' payment (a misnomer, since you're almost always going to 'tap' their sign or reader!). It's not a question of if NFC will take off for wireless payment but of when.

At the phone level, your payment details need to be held securely - it's not clear yet whether a software implementation will be enough (as at present) or whether a physical chip or dongle will be needed. Your details are passed over using LLCP or yet another NFC protocol, SWP (Single Wire Protocol).

Note also that there are usually limits on how much can be paid in this manner, to prevent theft-and-then-use, etc. The limit is currently £15 in the UK but will probably rise in time (e.g. 'pay-by-card' fuel pumps are limited to £50 in the UK at the moment, I'd expect something similar for NFC). Amounts over the limit would presumably have to be authorised in the conventional manner with a PIN.

Summarising NFC use cases in video

Not all of the above are demonstrated in this video, but it's a useful 53 second overview, courtesy of Nokia:

Will NFC take off?

Absolutely. It's a technology that just makes sense when you use it. It's intuitive - you want information from something, or to give information to it - you want to pair your phone with another gadget - you want to transfer money to something - in each case you literally just 'tap' your phone in the right place and it's done. 

[NB. In practice, a 'tap' isn't always a simple tap, at least not for early NFC devices such as the C7 and Blackberry 9900. It often takes a good second, held in place, for the NFC detection and data transfer to take place. However, this is already much faster in newer smartphones (such as the Symbian Belle devices) and for 2012 phones, a tap will be just a 'tap' after all.]

The number of NFC-enabled phones is still low as of October 2011 (only a handful) and the number of NFC-aware services, gadgets and tags is just as pitiful, but there's a very clear growth curve and most major phone manufacturers have committed to NFC in their phones in 2012. Nokia, for one, is fully behind Near Field Communication, as we've seen in all the Symbian Belle smartphones, and as we'll doubtless see in many Series 40 and Windows Phone smartphones announced by the manufacturer in the future.

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian and All About Windows Phone, 20 October 2011

Given the usual subject matter of 'family members'  and 'friends' (i.e. human beings), the only one who gave their permission for use in a photo on this site was the guinea pig... 8-) Also, the guinea pig is cute. Oh, and the full 12 megapixel version of this N8-taken photo has unbelievable detail. Just sayin'...

"We don't bother anymore"

After a day with relatives, I'm asked by family members if I could send them my photos of the various (cute) nephews and nieces. "What's wrong with the photos you took?" I ask, knowing that each family member also has a smartphone. "Oh, we never bother taking photos anymore because we know you do it and yours are so much better!". 

I was a little dumbstruck. Really? Non-geeks were recognising that all phone cameras aren't created equal and that there's a vast gulf between the best and the worst, whatever the megapixel count might suggest? Is it possible that my comments on sensor size and type of flash are finally being heard?

But maybe this was a one off. A week later, at my parents house we went out for a lovely country walk. Halfway round the circuit, I asked my mother where her Olympus camera was. "Oh, I never bring it when you're here, because your phone always takes far better shots!"

All of which puts discerning camera-toting smartphone geeks under a certain amount of pressure. Both to live up to the reputation of whatever we're rocking (in my case, a Nokia N8, but a camera-specialist Windows Phone device from Nokia surely can't be too far away?) and to produce the photos that others in our family trees will be printing and sharing for months to come.

Gulp. Can you handle the responsibility?

All About Xenon - the 2011 edition

If the camera in your smartphone is good enough, of course, the photos will be good. It's hard to take a bad photo on the aforementioned N8. Ditto the Samsung Galaxy S II (unless it's very gloomy, indoors). 

I commented a while back on All About Symbian, in a Christmas article, that  "one day you'll look back and be glad you had an N8", referring mainly to the 'proper' Xenon flash and the way LED-flash-equipped smartphones really struggle to capture moving people (e.g. kids) when the light is anything other than very good.

That comment is still very valid and, in fact, puts enormous pressure on those of you without Xenon flash in your smartphone, because your friends and relatives know you have a top camera-toting smartphone and they expect great results. And when you show them your party shots and they see blurry, out of focus faces they're going to be rather disappointed. 

Here's to the rise of the REAL camera smartphone. I'd argue that the first such was the Nokia N82. Before that we'd had the Samsung Pixon12, the Sony Ericsson C905 and K850, for example, all of which were strictly dumb 'feature' phones. But the N82's mission was perfect photos, whatever the conditions. Perfect for those pressurised social moments - I've heard so many testimonies from people for which the N82's camera and Xenon flash saved the day.

Since then we've had the Sony Ericsson Satio (Symbian, S60 5th Edition), now obsolete and (of course) the Nokia N8 (running Symbian Anna, still updated), the HTC 7 Mozart (running Windows Phone 7.5, still updated)  and the Android-powered Motorola XT720 (also now obsolete), keeping the Xenon flash-equipped REAL camera phone line going. 

In the wider smartphone world though, with hundreds of models and hundreds of millions of sales, these handful of smartphone models (most of which didn't sell in vast quantities) are a drop in the bucket.

The HTC 7 Mozart, running Windows Phone 7, and the Symbian-powered Nokia N8, each showing off their flashes and lenses

General phone users have got disillusioned and just don't realise

Cynics will point out that, despite my recollections of family member being able to 'tell the difference', most people haven't been making a bee line for Xenon-flash-equipped, decent-sensored smartphones, instead preferring to choose models based on screen size or mobile OS. Which is fair enough. It's just that I don't think 'most people' do actually realise that smartphones can have 'all weather' cameras. I think that after hundreds of uninspiring shots from the various events they've attended with their current smartphones, the general populace still thinks that "photos from a camera phone will be OK as long as the sun's out" and that they sneak along a real camera to parties and events, something with a decent sensor and a real Xenon flash.

Which is my bone of contention - there's absolutely no reason why we can't have our cake and eat it. Smartphones - 'converged devices' were originally supposed to replace our cameras. The fact that they haven't for many people is the fault of manufacturers for lacking the courage to put in proper hardware that will delight people, whatever light conditions they have at their celebrations.

It's not rocket science

Here's to the rise of the REAL camera smartphone then. The Nokia N8 is a great example (whatever you think of Symbian), the HTC 7 Mozart (whatever you think of Windows Phone) tries hard but ultimately underperforms. And... there's nothing else currently announced that can compete with the N8 in all conditions.

It's really not rocket science for manufacturers - put in a 1/2.5" sensor or better (that's 'N95 size' and that was way back in 2007!) and put in a Xenon flash. Yes, the volume of your smartphone just got larger by about 5cc, but that's nothing, repeat nothing compared to how over the moon your customers will be by the terrific photos they get from their 'always with them' phone.

OK, I was wrong - this was a rant, after all!

Steve Litchfield, 11 October 2011

I’d like to thank Mobile Fun for supplying me with a pair of these speakers to review.

The XMI X-Mini II Mini Speaker in its packaging

The X-Mini II is a self-powered speaker, which means it can pump out far more decibels than your phone’s loudspeaker. It has a tiny 340mAh battery, but because it’s only driving a small speaker, it lasts for days of moderate use. In fact, during the weeks I’ve been testing, I’ve never had one run out of power, and it only takes a couple of hours to recharge. However, there is an on/off switch and a very bright LED indicator to remind you that it is switched on.

The X-Mini II comes with a combined charging and audio cable, and a felt pouch

The speaker is charged via its miniUSB socket; it’s a shame it wasn’t microUSB though, then it would have fitted standard phone chargers. A cable is supplied with a male type A USB connector and 3.5mm headphone jack, both are wired into a miniUSB plug. The X-Mini II can take both power and audio input through its USB socket. This means it can be continually run on external power when used with a laptop. The LED indicator displays red while charging, and changes back to blue when it’s fully charged.

Note that this is NOT a USB audio device. XMI have just connected the USB data pins to the analogue input of the speaker.

Charging the X-Mini II via the combined audio and power cable

The speaker has a self-contained 3 inch cable with 3.5mm audio jack. Being able to simply pop out an attached cable and plug into a phone’s headphone socket is much less hassle and battery draining than setting up a Bluetooth speaker.

The X-Mini II’s secret weapon is its bass output. If you keep the speaker closed, its quality isn’t much better than a laptop speaker, but is much louder. However, if you twist the speaker open, its bass cavity will expand. It’s actually just a concertinaed plastic tube, but its size is just right to let the bass frequencies resonate, creating a much heavier booming sound. In fact, these speakers pump out such powerful bass, that they can bounce themselves around!

The X-Mini II, open and closed

Each speaker has a 3.5mm output socket too. So if one speaker isn’t enough, you can daisy chain as many as you like. I was hoping that this would have been done intelligently so that stereo channels would be divided between each speaker, that was not the case though.

Daisy chaining two X-Mini II’s

However, if you absolutely have to create a stereo system out of your smartphone, you’ll have to buy two Xmini-II’s; then, buy a stereo to mono splitter (such as this). Plug the splitter into your headphone socket, then connect one speaker to each of the outputs, and then you can enjoy booming stereo!

Setting up for stereo sound

A side benefit of these bass heavy speakers is for people who have hearing difficulties, such as Meniere’s disease. Listening to any sort of vocal content on a mobile device (e.g. podcasts) is difficult for people whose hearing has a poor response to high frequencies. The X-Mini II really brings out the lower frequencies, making voices much more well defined. This is based on tests with a member of my family who suffers from Meniere’s.

Works great with a laptop for catching up on TV

If you are just looking for a small amplified speaker to complement your smartphone or laptop, then one of these speakers will serve you well. In terms of improving sound quality from tinny built-in speakers, then there isn’t a great benefit in daisy-chaining a second. However, if you want to go crazy (like me) and rig up a mobile stereo system, then two work very well.

You can find the X-Mini II at Mobile Fun for £19.95. You can also find a range of other mobile speakers at Mobile Fun too.

Highly Recommended.

David Gilson for All About Symbian, 07 October 2011



 

The MeeGo project announced today that it saw HTML5 as the future of mobile application development and would be “working hard” to help developers transition from MeeGo development to Tizen development.

As stated by Imad Sousou on the MeeGo blog:

By now, you may have read that The Linux Foundation, with the support of several other companies, announced a new project, Tizen, to build a new operating system for devices. This new project is first and foremost open source, and based on Linux. So it begs the question: why not just evolve MeeGo? We believe the future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5. Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux, even one aimed at mobile, as MeeGo has been. Emphasizing HTML5 means that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers need not be as rigid, and can evolve with platform technology and can vary by market segment.

Granted, this is a judgment on our part on which reasonable people could disagree, but that’s the conclusion I came to.

Intel also welcomed the change, encouraging MeeGo developers to develop in HTML5 for cross-platform compatibility between MeeGo and Tizen. It also affirmed its commitment to its App-Up application store, stating that it would be distributing Tizen applications.

And yes, MeeGo continues for our devices in market. MeeGo is a great choice for emerging markets and we’ve seen amazing devices already like the ASUS EeePC x101. AppUp continues to support MeeGo and we encourage MeeGo developers to continue to build and submit apps for our netbook devices in market. We also encourage MeeGo developers to consider a common development framework of HTML5 to bridge development between MeeGo and Tizen devices. And on the netbook side the MeeGo neetbook apps in the Intel AppUp center will be compatible and will run unchanged with Tizen netbook. So for those developers who invested in MeeGo for netbooks your apps will continue on Tizen netbooks.

As for application development for Tizen, the Intel AppUp developer program is a key destination for developers with the developer enabling programs you know from us, including; application labs, accelerator funding, developer challenges, and community engagement, to help drive development and app innovation for the Tizen™ platform. Intel’s strategy has always been to provide choice when it comes to operating systems. To this end, we work closely with partners such as Microsoft and Google on Windows and Android respectively. Tizen is just one more example of Intel’s contribution to open source, in an effort to help satisfy customer demands.

The LiMo Foundation also release a statement about Tizen.

Tizen combines the best open source technologies from LiMo and the Linux Foundation and adds a robust and flexible standards-based HTML5 and WAC web development environment within which device-independent applications can be produced efficiently for unconstrained cross-platform deployment. This approach leverages the robustness and flexibility of HTML5 which is rapidly emerging as a preferred application environment for mobile applications and the broad carrier support of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). Tizen additionally carries a state-of-the-art reference user interface enabling the creation of highly attractive and innovative user experience that can be further customized by operators and manufacturers.

What role for Qt?

The future of Qt in relation to Tizen is uncertain. It was not mentioned in any of today’s press releases. The Tizen website does make reference to a native development, but does not provide any further details. Instead HTML 5 is promoted as the development environment of choice and in an elastic piece of thinking is given as the reason for the need to evolve MeeGo.

However, Qt is a key component in many MeeGo related projects (e.g. part of the reference design for the GENIVI alliance for IVI devices) and, as noted above, Intel have indicated that there will be backwards compatibility with existing MeeGo netbook applications.

It seems likely that politics has a role to play here. Qt came into the MeeGo project from Nokia. Despite recent moves towards open governance, is still very much associated with Nokia. Intel were unhappy that Nokia switched to Windows Phone and  the member of LiMo (including Samsung) may prefer to avoid mentioning or relying on what is perceived to be a competitor's asset. 

In our opinion the likely scenario is that Qt will continue to play a major role in Tizen projects, but it will not be promoted as part of the core primary developer environment. Qt may be included as part of the default offering or it may be left to integrators to provide a version of Tizen with Qt. A possible example of how this might work in practise comes from Nomovok, who today released a press statement indicating that they would provide a version of Tizen integrated with Qt as part of their Steelrat system.

David Gilson and Rafe Blandford, for All About MeeGo, 28^th September 2011.

Ilari Nurmi, Vice President of Marketing, Nokia, said:

"Since we announced the Nokia N9 in June this year, the feedback that it has gotten from discerning and avid smartphone users across the world has been nothing short of fantastic. With the innovations in industrial design, user interface, and the Qt developer experience, the Nokia N9 sets the bar for how natural technology can feel, and represents the first in a number of products from Nokia that will be brought to life in similar fashion."

The N9 comes with a number of third party applications pre-installed. These include Angry Birds and WiFi Hotspot (from JoikuSoft). The device supports a range of third party services including Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Skype, Picassa and Flickr. More applications and services are available via the Ovi Store.

Janne Heikkinen, Nokia’s Product Planning Director, says that N9 device owners can expect to receive a number of software updates in the future. They will be based on feedback from early adopters and operators. In common with other Nokia devices, the timing and content of software updates will be "communicated closer to the download start".

The changes to Nokia's software strategy in February do leave the N9 as something of an orphan device - it is inevitable that the N9 will be haunted by the spectre of its status as Nokia's first and only MeeGo Harmattan device.  

However, today is the day for its supporters to celebrate they key milestone of commercial shipment. Moreover, whatever its surrounding context, the N9 still a very capable device and contains some remarkable innovations. Potential owners will need to decide whether the context outweighs the benefits of owning this singular device.

From James Whatley at 1000 Heads, who put the machine together:

Unlike most machinery, the instruction manual is quite simple:

1. Open Foursquare on your phone
2. Find the Nokia Gift Machine @ SMW
3. Check-in using the #NokiaConnects hashtag
4. Share to Twitter
5. Collect your prize

You'll find the machine at The Sky Park on Elliot Place, or you can keep an eye on the action via its Foursquare page.

To start with, I'm loving the cheeky nature of the name. For a long time Foursquare has been txtspked down to 4sq (or maybe that should be twttrspk?), so for an application with the primary goal of doing your check-in and status update as quickly as possible, going with the abbreviated portmanteau of 4squick is a brilliant name. Not only does it feel familiar, but it also gets the unique selling point of the app over.

I'm sure they've read the Foursquare brand feature guidelines.

So, how fast is 4squick compared to the official client? First up, with neither app running in the background of my E7 and no existing GPS signal showing on the status bar (e.g. from Nokia Maps running), how long does it take to perform a check-in at a location in the Foursquare database? The official Foursquare app takes 41.2 seconds and 4squick takes 31.1 seconds to go from opening the app to confirmation that I have checked in. So almost 25% quicker.

There is less of a difference when both apps are running in the background and simply need to refresh the list of places and decide where you are. The variance was maybe a second or two, and neither application was always in the lead, so I'm going to call this a draw with a lot of dependance on the interent connectivity and GPS signal around you.

But 4squick is also quick because of the UI. There is much less screen furniture on display, the target areas for buttons like refresh, share with a social network, and the list of places nearby, are larger and friendlier. This makes it a much easier application to use when walking along, as your arm and phone bounce up and down and you try to hit a hot-spot on the touchscreen.

The other addition to 4squick over the official application is the ability to add pictures to your check-ins. Powered by Foursquare's own picture sharing system, this is likely a temporary advantage as you'd expect the official app to have it integrated at some point (as it is on Android and iOS). When that update will arrive I'm not sure, but 4squick do need to tweak their image system as well. You can add pictures already taken by your phone, but you can't specifically start up a camera instance and take a photo from inside the application. When I went to take a picture, 4squick closed itself (perhaps by Symbian freeing up some memory) so I needed to start the check-in process again.

This isn't a huge issue for me, as I rarely add photos to check-ins, but it could be an important consideration for some. This quirk aside, I'm enjoying 4squick, even if it's miles away from the Symbian style guide with its brash white look, rounded corners and defaulting to Arial font (which is nice, but just wrong on a Symbian device - thankfully you can toggle back to the Nokia default). What I need is here, from a list of places nearby and where my friends have checked in, to the public tips at each location and the leaderboard of my friends centred around my current position (which sits around #25-#35, if you're interested).

But above all of this, the reason I'm probably going to be using 4squick rather than the official client (or the update option inside Gravity) is that it fits the new icon design of Symbian Anna and makes my phone look even smarter thanks to the 'squircle' ion. And it's purple. Shallow, yes, but sometimes presentation is about fitting in, and 4squick does that very well.

-- Ewan Spence, Sept 2011.

Shooting every Phones Show on a phone, I've a fair amount of experience in shooting video on phone cameras. I've come a long way in the last five years of doing the show, as has the technology itself. Here's how to get the most from it.

1. Light

As with my plethora of features on taking photos on smartphones, the number one consideration when capturing a video is light. In fact, it's even more important - consider that at 25 frames per second, the camera unit has only got 1/25th of a second to gather light for each frame. This is ample when the sun's shining, but 1/25th of a second to gather evening or indoor light through the relatively tiny lens and onto the tiny sensor in your smartphone is always going to be a struggle. (Which is why some smartphones are better at shooting low light video than others - they're the ones with the 'professional' glass optics, larger lenses and larger sensors - think Nokia N86, think Nokia N8.)

In general though, aim to shoot in as good a light as possible. It may be as simple as asking your subject to stand closer to a window or bright artificial light source. It may be that you can try to shoot a scene before the sun gets too low in the sky. Or maybe you can wait until that cloud blows over. You won't usually have the luxury of choice, of course, the smartphone video camera is the ultimate spur-of-the-moment capture device, but at least you'll now be able to forewarn yourself as to which situations are likely to turn out well and which will turn out noisy, grainy, streaky video.

You should also be aware of where the light is. So many amateur videos get ruined by having the light behind the subject, in which case they become a talking silhouette, like one of those spy interviews! Keep the light roughly behind YOU if at all possible. Yes, that's cliched advice, but it's cliched because it works. (There's also the added danger of bright light sources causing flare in the lens - this always looks ugly, even in video.)

2. Focus

There's also the matter of focus - there are several different systems here. Many cheaper designs (from the Symbian world, think Nokia N97, 5800) just focus on the horizon when shooting video, meaning that all close-up subjects are unsatisfactorily blurry. In this case, try to stay at least a couple of metres away from those you're shooting, so that the so-called 'depth of field' is at least within striking distance. Again, better light gives you better depth of focus, by the way.

Better designs have a pre-set focus of a couple of metres, as on the Nokia N95, N82, N86 and N8, with a depth of field from a metre away right to the horizon - with these you can shoot just about anything and 'get away with it'. With these, only 'macro' subjects are off limits and I'd take the N86 and N8 for ad-hoc 'no fuss' video capture over almost anything else on the smartphone market.

Another often used system is EDoF (Extended Depth of Field), mainly created by Nokia to provide a simpler way of getting good stills, but a technology which also works in video mode - and surprisingly well. In fact, in really good light (e.g. a sunny day) an EDoF-equipped smartphone (such as most of the Nokia Symbian^3 phones) will produce better, crisper video than any other phone-mounted video system. However, the EDoF camera units are also quite small (partly why Nokia started using them) and this means a small lens and a small sensor - so it's not surprising that as light levels fall (cloudy days, indoors, evenings), EDoF-produced videos tend to show lots of digital noise and can be unpleasant.

EDoF is also limited in terms of distance from your subject. The EDoF algorithms only work from about 60cm upwards, so again there's no chance of filming anything really close-up. Just be aware of this.

Finally, with the new Beta Camera application for the N8 we have a special 'close-up' mode with continuous auto-focus. In this case, you'll have no focus problems as such, providing you keep your subject nice and stable in the viewfinder. Just point and shoot. Do note though that there are significant compromises with continuous a-f. Firstly, you get 'hunting' as the subject changes slightly (i.e. moves) and there's the unpleasant visual effect of everything going blurry and then back in focus at regular intervals. Secondly, with a closer focus point (say, you're shooting a pet at 50cm), there's less depth of field and so you'll get much of the background going out of focus (i.e. blurry).

Four different focussing systems or options then, and it's critical to know which one your phone is using in order to get the best from it.

3. Steady as she goes

Nothing says 'rubbish', nothing says 'amateur', more than jerky video. You don't have to use a steadicam or tripod - just hold your smartphone in two hands and try to keep things as smooth as humanly possible. Move slowly, move the phone even slower. When panning round, go five times slower than you think you should - every movement gets hugely magnified in the video capture process. Try a slow pan, watch the results and see. Doesn't that look ten times more professional?

The problem is that when you're 'there', in the moment, the human eye can move incredibly quickly, taking things in - don't try to mimic this with what your phone is pointing at (unless you're going for the 'Blair Witch' effect). Think 'TV fly on the wall documentary' - the viewer, with no awareness of the overall context, has to got to work everything out from your VGA or 720p video frame, so give them more time and give them a steady picture to process.

4. Multitasking, shmultitasking

The theory is that a Symbian smartphone is superb at multitasking and that you should be able to perform any task no matter what else is running in the background. This isn't strictly true in the case of video capture. Trying to acquire and encode a high resolution video stream, saving it all on disk at up to 10Mbps isn't a trivial task. In practice, I've found that my footage occasionally 'loses' frames if I let email and other processor-intensive tasks run in the background. This won't be an issue for footage of your grandma or baby, but if you're shooting your friend's wedding or your daughter's nativity or some other one-off event, it's worth putting the phone into 'offline' mode for the duration. You don't want email syncs taking processor time from the camera - and you also don't want to be bothered by phone calls during capture!

5. Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Almost all modern smartphones are (sadly) created without any camera glass (actually plastic) protection, meaning that it quickly gets covered in fingerprints, dust and muck. Even a few small particles or a thin film of finger grease is enough to ruin the quality of your video capture, producing a tell-tale blurriness and extra flare from light sources. So, keep a tissue in your pocket and carefully wipe the 'glass' before any video capture.

6. Audio is all important

Sound quality is vital too. A blurred video image and great soundtrack is at least vaguely watchable - a crystal clear image and a muffled soundtrack is a waste of everybody's time. So the quality of the microphone in your smartphone will play a huge part here. Most Nokias have great microphones that won't disappoint, thankfully. The N86, N8, E6 and E7 even have digital microphones that produce true CD-quality sound, even under extreme conditions. 

You can help the sound side of things by choosing your location wisely. At an outdoor event, find a spot away from swirling wind, waterfalls or crowd noise. Indoors, stay away from air conditioning units and other noisy machinery. If you do have to compromise in terms of location, cup your hand to protect the microphone hole as far as possible, to channel noise from your subject into the tiny microphone. This can help a lot if your problem is swirling wind.

It goes without saying that you should find out where the microphone is on your phone (note that the N8 has a dedicated video capture mike on the camera island). And, having found out where it is, make darned sure that your fingers don't either block the hole (in your usual camera 'grip') or brush past it noisily (you'd be amazed how many extraneous noises on peoples' videos are their own fault, fingers, straps and miscellany near the microphone hole!

In a really noisy situation, as a last resort, you can get very close to your subject - yes, the image might be blurry, depending on your device, but at least you'll be able to make out what they're saying. And hey, you can always superimpose some photos to break things up, in the final edit?

PS. If you have a headset that has a microphone built-in, try using this as a makeshift wired mike - it can work surprisingly well in very noisy environments, though note that the microphone in these accessories is usually of lower quality, so it's a compromise.    

7. Check space

With modern 720p capture eating up a whopping 100MB per minute of footage, make absolutely sure that you're saving your videos onto the right disk (e.g. mass memory or microSD card) - look in 'Settings' in the Camera interface. The last thing you need is running out of space halfway through a clip!

In fact, it's a good idea to keep a couple of GB free as a minimum on your chosen disk, just in case you bump into something that's worth filming during your travels.

Armed with the above tips in mind, you should be able to maximise the quality of video capture from your phone. It'll never rival that from a genuine camcorder, but then you're able to film at the drop of a hat and will get footage where others are simply wishing they hadn't left their camcorder "in the car".....

Comments welcome if you can think of other tips to bear in mind!

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 16 September 2011

_{Image credit: Lazy Dynamics}

Important note: Some of the uses mentioned in this list use auto-focus, i.e. to capture items that are small and/or close-up. If your smartphone has an EDoF ('full focus') camera then you may be out of luck - or at least your use won't be quite so 'optimal'. Sorry!

1. Whiteboard capture and photocopier
   We've all been at meetings where the whiteboard has ended up scrawled across, with blobs and lines and markings. And, sometimes, it would be very useful to take home a record of what was planned out. Just take a photo of the whiteboard, from a metre away. Job done. The resolution on modern smartphone cameras means that there'll be plenty of detail to make out text, etc.
     
   Along the same lines, you can snap A4 and A3 documents that get handed round in the meeting. A LED flash will be more than adequate for such close-range snapping and you can then check details on these documents later on by blowing up the photos.
     
2. DIY 1: safer wiring
   You need to replace a complicated fitting around the home and you remove the casing of the old one. To be faced with more wires than you know what to do with. How will you work out which ones go where on the new fitting? One helpful aide de memoire is to snap the fitting at this stage - even if you can't work out the new fitting, at least you'll know where the wires went back on the old one!
     
3. Restaurant specials boards/menus
   You're in a pub or restaurant with your family and have chosen a table and sat down. You examine the menu and someone wonders what the 'specials' are today. You're despatched to check and are faced with seven different detailed dishes scrawled on a blackboard by the kitchen. You'll never memorise them all, so just snap the blackboard and read off the list from your phone screen when you're back at the table. Easy!
    
   A variant on this can be when there's no actual printed menu that you can take to a table. At a seaside cafe, with my family on the beach 200m away, I once went and simply snapped the menu board and then let each person place their 'order' with me from the phone screen. A smartphone making your life easier? Oh yes.
     
4. DIY 2: underfloor and behind cupboards
   When there's a plumbing or heating problem, it can be extremely useful to look under floorboards or behind or under cupboards without causing mayhem in terms of dismantling things. As long as you've got an aperture that's an inch or more in size then you can position your phone camera down at arm's length to the aperture and snap 'blind' under the floor or under the cupboard as needed. The results can be beautifully clear, especially as it's a closed space and so your LED flash will be more effective than normal. You'll instantly be able to spot where the problem lies, in terms of leaks or unseen damage.
    
   In addition, when working out where pipes lie beneath floorboards, you only have to take one board up and then let your phone camera do the rest, spying out the floor in four or five boards in each direction.
     
5. Accident recording
   This may seem obvious, but if you do get involved in an incident of any kind, whether driving, on a bike or even on a pavement, snap everything you can, from damage to positioning, you never know when extra information is going to be needed later (e.g. was that car in the wrong place on the road?) With geotagging (if you have it turned on), you can even get these photos tagged with their exact location - which, again, might be useful later in the case of a dispute.
     
6. DIY 3: snapping old parts
   This may just be me, but when trying to replace an old part from around the house, it's easier to snap the appropriate component and take the phone to the hardware store and show the photo to the storesman. It saves having to ask for "the round white thingummy" or similar!
     
7. Recording tickets/passport
   This must surely be a well known use for smartphone cameras, at least auto-focus ones. When you travel, take photos before you set off of your tickets, travel documents and passport pages. That way, if something gets lost, you've at least got the information that was printed on them - and in extreme cases, can show the photos to the train conductor or immigration officials as some proof of your identity and plans.
    
   
8. Noting train times/platforms
   You're travelling by train and you wander up to the timetable board to see the next few trains to your destination. Ten minutes later, you begin to doubt your memory and have to wander over again. Twenty minutes (and one cancelled train) later, you have to wander over yet again. Just snap the timetable and have the relevant section on your phone screen for instant reference. It'll save a lot of to and fro!
     
9. Augmented reality
   Ah yes, the secondary reason why Nokia and others keep putting out phones with unprotected camera glass (the first is thinness, of course) - being able to start applications to use the camera/viewfinder without anything getting in the way. Layar, Wikitude and 3D World Gaze all offer unique views on the world, showing photos, items and information around you in the approximate location overlaid on the photographic view on the phone screen. Give them a try.
     
10. Measuring large objects
    As recently detailed in my review of Cam Measure, there are ways to use your phone camera and other sensors to use basic trigonometry to calculate the distance and size of large objects (buildings, statues, etc) in front of you.
      
11. Mirror
    No, don't laugh. We've all needed to check something about our appearance when there isn't a mirror to hand. With the 'front camera' turned on, you can view your own (hopefully) handsome visage in glorious (ahem) nHD resolution on your phone screen in real time.
     
    Even more useful is when you need to check something on your back, e.g. the back or side of your head, in which case you can use the normal camera and snap a photo, blind, and then bring the phone round to the front to see what it saw.
      
12. Magnifying glass
    Again following up on one of my reviews,  you can use an application like Magnify to get really, really close up to small print and anything else too small to comfortably see. Works very well, and you can record what you see in photo form, of course.

As a final postscript to the list, you can also use your camera's LED flash as a torch, either using the built-in hotkey on most of the Symbian^3 phones or using a dedicated application. This is really, really useful, though it doesn't use the camera sensor, of course, so isn't in the main list.

And, hey, here's a radical thought, why not use your phone camera to take.... actual photos of people and things as well? 8-)

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 14 September 2011

In essence, the application provides large on screen controls to make it easier to use when driving. There are three key use cases: navigation, music and calling. The navigation element is based on the Drive module of Nokia Maps, the music element is based on the Music application (sharing the same music library) and the calling elements are based on the Phone and Contacts applications.

Having a dedicated application for in-car usage make sense, but the real benefits come when it is combined with integration into the car's hardware. This is what the application's support for MirrorLink is all about. The MirrorLink technology enables the replication of the screen of the phone to a head unit and will also connect the phone to the car's audio system. The head unit, which is generally made up of a dashboard mounted touchscreen and associated buttons, can send input to the phone. In addition, the phone can also use the car sensors (e.g. GPS and microphones), to augment its own built in sensors. 

A Nokia 701 being plugged into an Alpine head unit via the microUSB port.
Once upgraded to Symbian Belle, all Symbian^3 devices (Nokia N8, C7, E7, E6, X7, C6-01 etc.) will be able to use the application. 

In practice, this means that key phone functionality and applications appear to be fully integrated into the car's own systems, going a long way beyond what is possible with current Bluetooth-based systems. The phone holds the data and is doing most of the hard work, but there should be no need to actually interact with the phone directly. Rather, everything can be controlled from the head unit's touchscreen and associated controls.

MirrorLink is an open standard (and trademark) of the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC). The intention is that MirrorLink head units will work with any phone that supports the standard (i.e. akin to Bluetooth or USB). Nokia is just the first phone manufacturer to implement MirrorLink support. Other members of the CCC (HTC, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola Mobility) are likely to follow in due course. We are likely to see further developments at the Car Connectivity Consortium Summit, which takes place at the end of the month in Chicago.

MirrorLink was previously known as Terminal Mode, a technology that was initially developed in Nokia Research and Development labs. We've previously written about the technology here and here.

Nokia Car Mode application demoed

This video, from Nokia, shows Nokia Car Mode being used with Alpine's ICS-X8 App Link Station. The phone is plugged into the Alpine head unit, which automatically starts the Nokia Car Mode application.

Alpine ICS-X8 App Link Station

The first commercial MirrorLink head units to be announced is Alpine's ICS-X8 App Link Station. It was also announced today at the IAA event and has been developed under a strategic partnership agreement between Alpine and Nokia.

The Alpine ICS-X8 is a head unit that can be retrofitted to supported cars to add MirrorLink and Bluetooth hands-free phone functionality. It has a high resolution seven inch touchscreen. Other features include a built in Bluetooth module, echo cancellation and microphone gain adjustment (allowing sound quality to be tweaked for virtually any car interior) and the ability for the software to be updated via a USB connection. 

As part of the ICS-X8 package, Alpine provides sound equipment that reflects the company's heritage in this area:

The ICS-X8 continues Alpine’s legacy of high sound quality, featuring a 50W x 4 amplifier, three high voltage pre-amp outputs, 9-band Parametric EQ, digital time correction, and digital crossover. To tackle the lossy nature of compressed digital music, Alpine’s exclusive MediaXpander™ technology ensures richer music playback more true to the original recording. These sound quality features are available as well for Nokia Music playback.

The ICS-X8 will be available in November through authorised Alpine dealers.

Nokia remains the biggest contributor to Qt and as such maintain the lion's share of influence over the project. This is because the governance of Qt will be driven by those contributing to the project. 

However, people in Nokia working on Qt will start working on Qt as an upstream project and will be using the same infrastructure as everyone else. Moreover around 15% of the initial Maintainers (owners of a component of the Project code) do not work for Nokia. One of the longer term goals of the Qt Project will be to increase the number of non-Nokia Maintainers.

Nokia is set to continue to make significant investments in Qt. Nokia have said they will be using Qt to help connect the next billion users. This will see Nokia focus its future Qt work on the next generation of Series 40 devices. Qt also remains the developer environment of choice for Symbian and MeeGo Harmattan and is being used in Nokia's work on Terminal Mode (connecting phones to cars). 

As the Qt Blog notes the key goal is transparency and equal access to all, which will increase the speed of development and the adoption of Qt:

The Qt governance, roadmap and releases will be driven openly by the Qt Project – open to all the stakeholders willing to contribute. It will have an open governance model based on equal access to all discussions and tools, an open contribution process and meritocratic assignment of roles. We want Qt to excel by all measurements as a transparent, merit-based and participative open source community project. We believe this is the key to speeding up development and increasing the adoption of Qt.

Nokia continues to be the main contributor to the project, embracing Qt for its strategy to reach the next billion of mobile web users. As always, other parties continue to be invited to join the project, working on current releases and defining the future of Qt.

The Qt Blog also notes the widening of the scope of Qt:

In addition to handsets, we see that the use of Qt on desktop continues and increased use of Qt in various embedded segments. Automotive infotainment systems and a wide range of consumer electronics devices are good examples of segments where Qt apps also can evolve. Qt is used by many automotive suppliers and manufacturers in alliances/consortium such as Genivi and MirrorLink. Qt, on embedded Linux and RTOS like QNX, is bringing the Web, Qt apps and new UI possibilities to multiple companies creating a wide range of solutions including consumer electronics.

More information on the Qt Project is available in this Qt Blog post and this Qt Labs Blog post. More information on the Qt Project Governance model is available on this wiki page.

The pricing being charged by the flagship store is roughly in line with other pre-orders (e.g. UK online retailer Mobile Fun has pre-orders at £519.95. Early pre-orders typically have a small price premium; we expect the cost of the device to fall slightly once it becomes generally available.

Nokia's Helsinki flagship store is located at 46 Alexander Street. The shop has a small demo area where you can find information on the MeeGo Harmattan device and use a demo model.