New Nokia site

Nokia as always is always trying to do something that is different from the rest. From collecting info about diseases, to providing farmer information to the people who need it. Recently Nokia has just launched a new website, www.nokia.com/responsiveness. The website centers around Nokia’s messaging service. This has been done in conjunction with TED fellows, who have featured in some videos for the site, which put a different spin on things.

So what is it about you ask? Well, I’ll let you explore this and tell me what is it all about…

Nokia Messaging Service becomes paid from December

Like me if you have been using Nokia’s email solution, Nokia Messaging Service, you must be loving (and hating it at times) the ability of it to view your email on the phone itself almost instantaneously as it comes to your email box.

Well come December, this service is going to cost you. Nokia Messaging from December will become a paid service on a select few networks. Also going to be released soon is an S40 client, since there are more S40 phones sold than S60. I remember that NMS product manager had said long time back that it would remain an S60 exclusive service. But, I’m glad to know it will be moving to S40, a platform which needs to be accepted as a platform for the masses.

I do have a few questions though, about NMS going paid, like what happens to the E75 owners who got a free lifetime subscription to Nokia Messaging Service, will they have to pay for it now? or does it still remain free?

Will the pre-paid (pay as you go) customer be also included in the scheme of things, or will he be thought to be just a voice and SMS based user? I’ve heard that the service is expected to undercut BlackBerry’s email offering of INR 299 per month, offered by most of the service operators in India.

Leave your comments down below and let us know what your views are on this.

Nokia World 2009

If you are looking for the coverage to Nokia World ‘09. I have covered it on www.symbian-lifeblog.com. Direct links given below:

1. Devices: http://symbian-lifeblog.com/2009/09/nokia-world-09-day-1-the-devices.html

2. Accessories: http://symbian-lifeblog.com/2009/09/nokia-world-09-day-1-the-accessories.html

3. Services: http://symbian-lifeblog.com/2009/09/nokia-world-09-day-1-the-services.html

I just did not feel like writing it twice so I haven’t posted anything here, yet. But don’t worry there’s quite a lot of things planned here, so stay tuned.

N900 videos

Following up to my post on the N900, I thought of adding the videos of the N900 too. So without further ado,

 

And another one which is a small introduction of Maemo,

 

And as a bonus let me also share a bit of the code that Nokia released to get all you Maemo and Linux based developers started…

 

/**
* gtk_helloworld-1.c
*
* This maemo code example is licensed under a MIT-style license,
* that can be found in the file called “License” in the same
* directory as this file.
* Copyright (c) 2007-2008 Nokia Corporation. All rights reserved.
*
* A simple GTK+ Hello World. You need to use Ctrl+C to terminate
* this program since it doesn’t implement GTK+ signals (yet).
*/

#include /* EXIT_* */
/* Introduce types and prototypes of GTK+ for the compiler. */
#include

int main(int argc, char** argv) {

/* We’ll have two references to two GTK+ widgets. */
GtkWindow* window;
GtkLabel* label;

/* Initialize the GTK+ library. */
gtk_init(&argc, &argv);

/* Create a window with window border width of 12 pixels and a
title text. */
window = g_object_new(GTK_TYPE_WINDOW,
“border-width”, 12,
“title”, “Hello GTK+”,
NULL);

/* Create the label widget. */
label = g_object_new(GTK_TYPE_LABEL,
“label”, “Hello World!”,
NULL);

/* Pack the label into the window layout. */
gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(window), GTK_WIDGET(label));

/* Show all widgets that are contained by the window. */
gtk_widget_show_all(GTK_WIDGET(window));

/* Start the main event loop. */
g_print(”main: calling gtk_main\n”);
gtk_main();

/* Display a message to the standard output and exit. */
g_print(”main: returned from gtk_main and exiting with success\n”);

/* The C standard defines this condition as EXIT_SUCCESS, and this
symbolic macro is defined in stdlib.h (which GTK+ will pull in
in-directly). There is also a counter-part for failures:
EXIT_FAILURE. */
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Now I don’t know how helpful it is, but this is certainly a good way to build rapport with the software programmers. Good going Nokia and Maemo!

Source for the code: http://acurrie.posterous.com/hows-this-for-open-nokia-posts-some-code-to-g

Nokia N900 announced!

Yesterday, Nokia made one of the most path breaking announcements since the Apple iPhone’s launch a few years ago. Nokia made the rumored, N900, device official. Not like it wasn’t earlier, but yesterday everything we ought to know about the N900 was revealed. The physical product launch will be made at the Nokia World 2009 scheduled to be held at Stuttgart, Germany this September.

So what’s so fascinating about the N900, you ask?

Well, the N900 is the first Linux based smartphone that Nokia is launching. It runs on Maemo.

So what? You ask….

This phone has all the bells and whistles the N97 should have had. In short it is everything the N97 should have been in the first place. A peek below at the specs shall make things clear to you.

Display

• 3.5 inch touch-sensitive widescreen display
• 800 × 480 pixel resolution

Language support

British English, American English, Canadian French, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Swedish, Russian

Connectivity

• 3.5mm AV connector
• TV out (PAL/NTSC) with Nokia Video Connectivity Cable
• Micro-USB connector, High-Speed USB 2.0
• Bluetooth v2.1 including support for stereo headsets
• Integrated FM transmitter
• Integrated GPS with A-GPS

Battery

BL-5J 1320mAh

Processor and 3D accelerator

TI OMAP 3430: ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz, PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support

Memory

Up to 1GB of application memory (256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)

Size and weight

Volume:

Approx 113cc

Dimensions:

110.9 × 59.8 × 18 (19.55 at thickest part) mm

Weight:

Approx 181g

Mass memory

• 32 GB internal storage
• Store up to 7000 MP3 songs or 40 hours of high-quality video
• Up to 16 GB of additional storage with an external microSD card

Keys and input method

• Full QWERTY tactile keyboard
• Full QWERTY onscreen keyboard

Colour

Black

Operating frequency

• Quad-band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• WCDMA 900/1700/2100 MHz

Data network

GPRS class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 107/64.2 kbps (DL/UL) EDGE class A, multislot class 32, maximum speed 296/177.6 kbps (DL/UL) WCDMA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 384/384 kbps (DL/UL) HSPA 900/1700/2100. Maximum speed PS 10/2 Mbps (DL/UL) WLAN IEEE 802.11b/g

Call features

• Integrated hands-free stereo speakers
• Call waiting, call hold, call divert
• Call timer
• Logging of dialed, received and missed calls
• Speed dialing via contact widget
• Virbrating alert (internal)
• Side volume keys
• Mute/unmute
• Contacts with images
• Conference calling with up to 3 participants
• Internet calling

Email & Messaging

• Supported protocols: Mail for Exchange, IMAP, POP3, SMTP
• Support for email attachments
• Support for rich HTML
• SMS and Instant Messages as conversations
• Support for Nokia Messaging service
• Instant messaging and presence enhanced contacts
• Multiple number, email and Instant Messaging details per contact, contacts with images
• Support for assigning images to contacts

Web browsing

• Maemo browser powered by Mozilla technology
• Adobe Flash™ 9.4 support
• Full screen browsing

GPS and navigation

• Integrated GPS, Assisted-GPS, and Cell-based receivers
• Pre-loaded Ovi Maps application
• Automatic geotagging

Camera

• 5 megapixel camera (2584 × 1938 pixels)
• Image formats: JPEG
• CMOS sensor, Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens
• 3 × digital zoom
• Autofocus with assist light and two-stage capture key
• Dual LED flash
• Full-screen viewfinder
• Photo editor on device
• TV out (PAL/NTSC) with Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U, included in box) or WLAN/UPnP
• Landscape (horizontal) orientation
• Capture modes: Automatic, portrait, video, macro, landscape, action

Video

• Wide aspect ratio 16:9 (WVGA)
• Video recording file format: .mp4; codec: MPEG-4
• Video recording at up to 848 × 480 pixels (WVGA) and up to 25fps
• Video playback file formats: .mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp; codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263

Music and audio playback

• Maemo media player
• Music playback file formats: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
• Built-in FM transmitter
• Ring tones: .wav, .mp3, .AAC, .eAAC, .wma, .m4a
• FR, EFR, WCDMA, and GSM AMR
• Digital stereo microphone
• DLNA

Personalisation

• Background pictures
• Widgets on your desktops
• Intelligent contact shortcuts
• Shortcuts to your favourite websites
• Shortcuts to applications
• Themes

Operating system

Maemo 5 software on Linux

Applications

• Maemo Browser
• Phone
• Conversations
• Contacts
• Camera
• Photos
• Media player
• Email
• Calendar
• Ovi Maps
• Clock
• Notes
• Calculator
• PDF reader
• File manager
• RSS reader
• Sketch
• Games
• Widgets
• Application manager for downloads

Gaming

• Bounce
• Chess
• Mahjong

What´s in the box

• Nokia N900
• Nokia Battery (BL-5J)
• Nokia High Efficiency Charger (AC-10)
• Nokia Stereo Headset (WH-205)
• Video out cable (CA-75U)
• Nokia charger adaptor (CA-146C)
• Cleaning cloth

After reading that huge list you would be wondering, ‘What happened to Nokia all of a sudden?’ What happened is that Nokia has just woken up from a deep slumber. It has made a conscious effort to answer all its critics and aficionados with one product. It has sought to silence its competitors with this one product, The N900.

The N900 means a lot to Nokia and for the mobile industry as a whole. This product is but a cog in what I would call the next wave of change. Come 2010 and the industry would have begun the next step in its evolution. Nokia had realized this and accordingly made changes to its lineup. The Symbian based N97 has in an instant become a relic of the last century, figuratively. Bested by the Omnia HD in terms of hardware, the N97 still is one of the most sought after devices and it will continue to be so.

But let’s face it the N97 is now from the last generation of smartphones. The re-entry of Linux in such a powerful manner means that S60 may not be the ‘preferred’ OS for Nokia anymore. It means that Nokia now has an alternative, a stronger weapon up its sleeve to fight off competition. The S60 still is potent, what with the thousands of apps available for the S60 platform; it is far from being labeled an old timer and the new improved Symbian will emerge soon. But till then I feel it is the Maemo which will pick up the mantle from S60 as the premier smartphone OS.

That does not mean that the potent N86 and N97 are worthless, no! They are the best of S60 and are in no way outdated. The Maemo is simply a new and refreshing way to do things on your phone, a true game changer.

This is one phone that will have many manufacturers running for cover. Samsung will be one of the first to feel the heat, since it is the no. 2 company in this industry.

What I must ask and many will also ask once the hype subsides a bit, ‘Is this a year late from Nokia?’

For more on Maemo: http://maemo.org/

For more on N900: http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/