The news that Nokia just handed over its one and a half billionth Series 40 phone was interesting - and impressive - and got me thinking and fact-checking. Just how many Symbian-powered smartphones have been sold, in total, i.e. in the last decade? Turns out it's now well over 500 million, i.e. over half a billion Symbian smartphones have already been sold and are... out there in the world somewhere. Some thoughts below.
Nokia Configuration Tool, a Windows PC application for system administrators to manage the settings of Symbian phones through a USB cable or Bluetooth, has now graduated from Nokia Beta Labs and is formally available for enterprise users as version 6.3.
Thanks to a reminder from WebProNews, it's instructive to look again at the smartphone world via StatCounter, a pro service embedded on many web sites which tracks the browser and OS used to access them. And, reflecting the still enormous installed base of Symbian-powered smartphones across the world, Symbian still (for web access, at least) still dominates the world, at 31%. The full graph is below, along with some comments.
When the Nokia 701 was announced, I leapt up on its specification with my editor's hat firmly in place. "BL-5K battery, 1300mAh" read the press release. Having owned the Nokia N86 and having played with the C7 and X7, all with the same battery, "that's got to be a typo" I asserted and insisted that Rafe fix it to "1200mAh" for our news story. As it turns out, the Nokia 701 ships with a new 'variant' of the BL-5K that we haven't seen before, rated at "1300mAh". Have there been chemical tweaks inside?
Nokia has finally relaxed its somewhat restrictive policy of only allowing you to download paid content up to five times (it was a draconian three times, originally) - the limit has apparently now been raised to ten times. Given that you also have to be fully signed in as well, many have argued that there shouldn't be any limit, but ten is a reasonable number and should appease even serial phone switchers like ourselves!
A free exhibition is currently running at the London Design Museum (28 Shad Thames, London SE1), entitled, 'People Made - Nokia products that changed the world' and tells the 'inside story of Nokia - past, present and future'. The exhibition is free to enter, but is only running from October 28th to November 2nd, leaving you three days to go along and take a look.
The Ovi Store and other Ovi services have been transitioning to the new name, i.e. just "Nokia" for a few weeks now, but it's important to note that there's a new URL for the main storefront on the web. Yes, store.nokia.com just went live, though obviously the old store.ovi.com will be supported for a long time to come.
Mac owners who enjoy bullet-proof syncing from iCal and Address Book with their Nokia/Symbian smartphone(s) should note that upgrading to the latest (and new) OS X Lion operating system will yield at least one unpleasant surprise: Apple has removed all trace of iSync, the phone-sync application that has had wide manufacturer compatibility. Happily there's a workaround.
This may seem like something you kind of knew already, but just in case... the mass of 'official' Anna themes appearing regularly in the Ovi Store (i.e. with all the new icons, animations, background and transitions) also work fine with many of the older S60 3rd Edition (i.e. non-touch-driven) smartphones. See below for an example.
Thanks to Yash for the heads-up that Nokia has added the much-respected Joikuspot Premium to its 'Gift' section in the Ovi Store for some S60 3rd Edition phones, the E52, E55 and E72. Screenshot proof below - essentially, Joikuspot Premium turns your phone into a full Wifi-tethering solution for hooking up your tablet and laptop. The usually free 'Lite' version is restricted to just 'http' traffic (i.e. web browsing), so it's great to see this full solution, also without cost.