Tag: nokia

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Nokia <3 Microsoft

“WTF!” was my immediate reaction when I read about Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s announcement that Nokia is partnering with Microsoft and putting Windows Phone 7 in their phones.

A few days ago, Elop sent out a memo likening Nokia to a burning oil platform. There was anticipation that a big change is coming, perhaps Nokia joining the Android juggernaut or perhaps Nokia joining Elop’s former employer Microsoft.

Unfortunately, it was the latter. Apparently, Elop has decided that they Nokia must first and foremost beat Android. I guess this is a nod that Android will beat the iPhone. Unfortunately, his decision precludes choosing Android. Too bad since, choosing Microsoft is IMHO just dumb.

The iPhone is formidable because it is such a tightly-controlled well-directed “closed but powerful ecosystem”, to quote Elop himself. More importantly, behind that control and directions is a true visionary: Steve Jobs. It also enjoys with a considerable lead time in the market and in the number of developers and apps.

Android is formidable because, being open, a lot of players can (and did) join in: HTC, Motorola, SonyEricsson, Samsung, and LG. Even the KIRF makers in Shenzen are joining in. With the huge marketing effort by these players and the huge availability of phones, comes a lot of developers and apps. Who cares about fragmentation? The PC is fragmented. There is no doubt Android will beat iPhone. It’s the PC vs Apple II all over again.

But WP7? It is the descendant of Windows CE and Windows Mobile both of which were failures. The constant rebranding should be clue enough. Symbian is not any worse than WP7. Heck, Symbian has more apps and developers than WP7!

There could be some synergy in Microsoft and Nokia working together, combining their strengths in marketing and technology development. But such close cooperation might actually alienate HTC and others who also make WP7 phones, nudging them completely to the Android side.

Elop has just failed Nokia’s stockholders.

UPDATE: I guess investors feel the same way because Nokia’s stock took a dive a bit after the announcement.

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Swype For Symbian

The other day, Leslie told me about Swype for Symbian. Swype is an alternative input method for touchscreen devices where you swipe your finger from letter to letter onthe virtual keyboard without taking your finger off to spell a word. It’s all the rage in Android virtual keyboards.

Unfortunately, it’s only available for the Nokia 5230, 5800, N97, N97 Mini, X6, and C6-00. I tried it on Michelle’s 5800 and it was great. The nicest thing is that it provides a new keyboard for both portrait and landscape orientations. The new keyboards are way better-looking than the built-in keyboards. The portrait qwerty keyboard even shows the interface of the app you are working with instead of taking up the whole screen. As a bonus, regular key tap input still works.

UPDATE: Today, I found out it’s now available at the Ovi store for the N8. Does it fix one of the N8’s biggest problems? Not quite. The portrait qwerty keyboard is not available on the N8 version so you’re still stuck with the regular phone keypad. Still, you get Swype and that already quite an improvement.

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Nokia N8 First Impression

Had the chance to play around with a Nokia N8 display unit. Build is very good. The body is mainly made of anodized aluminum. It’s not stainless steel but it’s reasonably tough. The display is covered with Gorilla glass so it should also be tough. Even the plastic ends and port covers seems to be of a durable material. No flimsy rubber here like that on the E51. It comes in many colors but no black. Only a watered down dark gray.

The camera is great. The main selling point of the N series has always been the camera and it doesn’t disappoint. The lens is Carl Zeiss and it has a Xenon flash. It is good for general purpose shots and even has macro. The shutter is a two-stage focus then shoot button. It also takes 720p video at 25fps. There’s supposedly a hack out there that makes this 30fps. The trade-off is that the camera module is quite big and significantly protrudes from the back.

Continue reading “Nokia N8 First Impression”

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Nokia Messaging On The E51

One gripe I have with the Nokia E51’s built-in email client is that it doesn’t display HTML. Nor does the GMail mobile client. I’ve heard about the downloadable Nokia Messaging app which is already built-in to newer Nokia handsets but I’ve put off downloading it until now.

To get it, you’ll need to go to the Nokia Messaging website and create an account. You can use your GMail account to jump start account creation. Once you have an account, you provide your phone number, select your phone model, and a download link to the Nokia Messaging app for your phone is sent via SMS. Click the link, download, and install.

There are a few more things that you might have to configure:

  1. Go to Tools->Settings->General->E-mail key setting. Set E-mail key to Nokia Messaging email.
  2. Go toTools->Settings->General->Personalisation->Standby mode->Active standby plug-ins. Uncheck the Default e-mail notif. and Act. standby mailbox plug-ins.
  3. Set Tools->Settings->General->Personalisation->Standby mode->One-touch keys->Messaging key. Set both short press and Long press to “Default setting”

New email will now appear on the standby screen. A short press on the messaging key will get you to the Inbox and a long press take you to Compose screen. And you can view your email in HTML glory!