According to Gartner, mobile phone sales for the first quarter totaled some 428 million devices, with just 23 percent being smartphones. With so much room to grow, there would appear to be room for many competitors, but an expansive market is still a finite one. Read more »
Nokia is rebranding its Ovi services, or at least what’s left of them, starting this July. Ovi Mail went to Yahoo!, the Ovi Store will wither with Symbian and Ovi Maps will integrate into Windows Phone 7. Might Microsoft buy Nokia’s handset division at this point? Read more »
Nokia said today it will outsource Symbian development to Accenture, transferring 3,000 workers in the process. It also announced its largest jobs cuts in history with plans to shed another 4,000 jobs by the end of 2012, mostly in the U.K., Denmark and Finland. Read more »
A long-awaited update to Nokia’s Symbian operating system improves the browser and keyboard on existing handsets, and the company is launching two new smartphones. Ovi Store downloads are up 25 times from a year ago. If this continues, Nokia might not need Microsoft after all. Read more »
Is Nokia’s Symbian operating system relegated to a historical footnote by 2015? Research firm Gartner thinks so, but Nokia’s transition to Windows Phone 7 could take a few years and Google’s Android platform isn’t yet entrenched in the low-end segment just yet: Symbian may survive longer. Read more »
Within the next five years, smartphones will account for more than one-third of all handsets sold worldwide, thanks largely to platforms like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. This research covers the global handset platforms market for the period between 2011 and 2015. We first examine the factors contributing to this worldwide growth, from a slowly recovering economy to the rise of technologies like 4G and LTE. Regional factors affect growth, too, and our research includes a forecast for the following areas: the Americas; Europe; the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific. Forecasts are on a global and regional basis for the most important platforms: Android, Apple iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Companies mentioned in this report include Apple, Google, Nokia, Research in Motion and Microsoft. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Tired of the same old Twitter clients that simply show a scrolling list? The aptly-named Different Tack application could be just what you’re looking for. Based on decades of human information process insights, the software uses a colored scroll-wheel to navigate and interact with tweets. Read more »
Just five months into his tenure as the CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop has seen enough. A company-wide memo has prepared Nokia for a major shakeup as Elop has observed a lack of focus, speed and execution in Nokia’s long term strategies. Here’s what’s next. Read more »
Nokia’s newest Symbian devices have their first firmware upgrade waiting, but most of the changes aren’t visible to the end user aside from two email enhancements. Competitors are moving forward faster than Nokia, which illustrates the challenge: Pick up the pace else risk being left behind. Read more »
2010 was the year of Android. That’s according to research firm Canalys, which reports that Google’s operating system eclipsed Symbian in the fourth quarter to become the top smartphone OS in the world by shipments. It caps a huge year of growth for Android. Read more »
Smartphones aren’t the sole domain of push notifications: the new Nimbuzz Ping feature shoots an SMS to feature phones when a contact wants to get in touch. Although smartphone sales are rising, the majority of global handsets are still feature phones, allowing for plenty of opportunities. Read more »
Launch rumors of the Nokia X7, a new Symbian smartphone, appear to be squashed as the phone will reportedly not be available on AT&T next month. Without carrier support for subsidies and marketing, the odds of Nokia gaining a foothold in the U.S. continue to decrease. Read more »
Nokia’s new leadership under ex-Microsoft executive Stephen Elop has reportedly met with Microsoft to plan a line of Nokia phones that would run the Windows Phone 7 software. The prospect is intriguing; suggesting that Nokia needs serious help getting its smartphone business in order. Read more »
Nokia today delayed its E7 handset from delivery in 2010 to some time in “early 2011.” A comparison between the E7 and Nokia’s N8 show devices that are far more similar than different, so what does the E7 delay say about the N8 user experience? Read more »
There seems to be an app for everything these days, and that include crime fighting. The Dallas Police offer free software for most smartphone platforms that help residents report crimes, submit tips and even send pictures which can help law enforcement catch the bad guys! Read more »
Based on a timeline from last week’s MeeGo Conference, the debut MeeGo smartphone with Intel Atom processor might not appear until June of 2011. If the market wasn’t so competitive, that might not be a problem, but Nokia will be competing with Apple’s next iPhone. Read more »
Samsung’s Bada is only a few months old, but already the operating system is accruing substantial market share. If the Korean manufacturer can overcome several key challenges, Bada could become a major worldwide mobile platform to compete with iOS and the increasingly fragmented Android ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Contrary to popular belief Google is apparently getting the Nexus S ready for sale at Best Buy this holiday season. The retailer leaked an ad that was spotted before being pulled. The Galaxy Tab is arriving in time for the holidays, and was unboxed on video. Read more »
Gartner last year said Android wouldn’t be the No. 2 operating system in the world until 2012, but the future has come early: the platform grabbed 25.5 percent of the market in the third quarter, up from 3.5 percent a year ago, moving into second place. Read more »
With more and more partners jumping ship from the Symbian Foundation, Nokia announced today it was taking back the reins of the Symbian platform as the foundation evolves into a licensing organization. The move underscores the slowing momentum for the platform and Nokia’s continued commitment to Symbian. Read more »
Symbian, the open-sourced platform used in Nokia’s smartphones, gained a €22m investment from the ARTEMIS Joint Technology Initiative to create the SYMBEOSE consortium from 8 member nations. What’s the sudden public-private interest in Symbian? Fear of a future filled with embedded devices running Google Android. Read more »
Nokia hoped to revive Symbian’s importance by reinvigorating its developer base in light of a rush of Linux-based operating platforms like Android and LiMo. It hoped in vain and a lack of source code is the foundation for many its problems. Read more »
How much time does the average Android smartphone user spend in third-party apps? Nearly 42 minutes daily, which is significantly higher than on competing platforms. So why does such facetime in apps matter? It’s all about the mobile advertising as Google’s competitors try to catch up. Read more »
As we head towards the end of the calendar year, it’s a great time to be a smartphone buyer thanks to improving hardware, software and mobile broadband networks. Here’s a brief refresher of our thoughts and highlights on some of the latest handsets currently available. Read more »
Nokia shipped 26.5 million smartphones in the most recent quarter, a 61 percent increase from a year ago. But the company’s strategy is shifting yet again, as Qt will be the only development framework going forward and Symbian upgrades will arrive on a rolling basis. Read more »
Lee Williams today stepped down from his executive director role at The Symbian Foundation, reportedly due to personal reasons. When interviewed on camera last year, Williams argued against Android’s “evil” approach and named handset makers who were unhappy with Google. Today, those companies are growing profits. Read more »
Sony Ericsson has no current plans to use Nokia’s Symbian platform to power smartphones going forward and is instead turning to Google Android for future handsets. Given how long it’s taking Sony Ericsson to get phones off of Android 1.6, maybe it should stick with Symbian. Read more »
Nokia’s Ovi store has taken a perceived backseat to the iTunes App Store and Android Market. We spoke with Qik EVP Bob Rosin and several other developers at Nokia World for their perspective on Nokia’s Ovi Store enhancements, Symbian^3, and the Qt development tools. Read more »
Looks like Nokia has a new chief executive (ex-Microsoftie Stephen Elop), who’s going to bring change to the Finnish company that’s been caught flat footed by upstarts Apple and Google. Even assuming Elop brings about that change, it might be too late. Read more »
With worldwide carrier distribution, Android is on the march to dominate over the next four years, according to IDC. Nokia will still be the top dog, but it needs to be confident and deliver the strategies it has in place, else Google could own it all. Read more »
Smartphones didn’t always have Wi-Fi but it is now the norm. Fifty percent of Android devices consume more than 500 MB of data monthly through Wi-Fi hotspots, much more than 3G data usage. That’s a lot of data on phones, superphones or not. Read more »
As Nokia CEO since 2006, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has watched a decline in his company’s market share, average selling price per handset and stock value. Several attempts to stave off newer platforms such as iOS4 and Android have fallen short. Could Kallasvuo’s future with Nokia be ending? Read more »
A developer survey of Nokia’s Ovi Store highlights key areas of needed improvement, ranging from more efficient submission processes to faster Quality Assurance checks and better communications. Nearly half of those surveyed indicate that Nokia’s app store is below average when compared to rival software stores. Read more »
While Nokia is the undisputed king of feature phones, it doesn’t take a fortune teller to read the handwriting on the wall — smartphones will eventually replace feature phones. A shortcut to success for the company would be to stop fighting the same old battle and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In-app advertising — or “appvertising” — has quickly matured from a novel new marketing platform into a bona fide strategy for delivering pitches directly to consumers on their mobile devices, and the ever-increasing supply of apps on the market is giving advertisers endless opportunities to reach consumers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Spotify, the hot online music service that has taken Europe by storm, has been approved for launch in the Ovi store, making it a godsend for millions of Nokia users in Europe. As for Nokia, it will help the company fend off some of its rivals. Read more »
Join James, Matt and Kevin live for this week’s audio podcast where they’ll cover this week’s mobile technology news and share experiences with the latest software, hardware and web services. If you missed the live show, you can grab an MP3 audio recording. Read more »
It is no secret I love infographics, those charts that tell an entire story using pictures. So much information can be conveyed using the right combination of charts and figures. GigaOM has another great infographic that tells the story of the smartphone market at a glance. Read more »
The Windows Mobile world may have recently lost Skype, but Symbian owners can rejoice as the VoIP app has gone gold. Skype for Symbian is now available in the Ovi Store, and is a full featured client supporting most of Skype’s services. Read more »
Skype and Nokia this morning announced the addition of Skype for Symbian to Ovi Store, which is picking up traction with Nokia users around the world. It’s a huge win for Skype in terms of distribution and brand awareness, and a major threat to carriers. Read more »
