Symbian Blog: Archives for December 2009

The Paid up Web 2010

Dec 31st by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

The way the web influences mobile and mobile influences the web will surely be a feature of 2010, with the tradition of paid in mobile infecting its smaller cousin, creating more of a paid up web. What will be the reciprocal impact on the mobile web?

When Rupert Murdoch announced that he would start charging for access to his newspapers’ website content, people scoffed. The web wants to be free. But here’s BusinessWeek, from December 20th, on the sudden evolution of “paid“.

LinkedIn introduced a product last month that helps recruiting agencies scour the networking site for job candidates. In June, ESPN merged its online magazine with its Insider service, which costs $6.95 a month. Skype has added features such as voice mail and calling plans that allow users to dial land-line phones for a monthly fee.

BusinessWeek says that the paid model often sits alongside a free model but misses the mark when it refers to this as “freemium”.  Freemium implies a free-to-premium” hurdle or incentive, whereas often the paid model is an adjunct or a repacement for free.

Farmville for example charges for virtual objects but that is not a free-to-premium step up. And the Wall St Journal just charges, as will Murdoch’s British websites in 2010.

We may be reluctant to see the tide turning against free, reluctant to acknowledge it but advertising is not a good-always model for businesses. Read more »

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LTE and Service Design

Dec 30th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

The GSA recently documented the extent of LTE commitments for 2010 so where’s it all headed for end-users and is there scope to boosts service design learning so that LTE and related concepts like the smart city and connected car work well for people?

  • 51 operators have committed to LTE deployments in 24 countries
  • The world’s first LTE networks were launched by TeliaSonera in Sweden and Norway on December 15, 2009
  • Up to 19 LTE networks are expected to be commercially launched by the end of 2010

Verizon is trialing LTE  in Boston and Seattle (and plans rollout in 30 major US markets in 2010) and with Teliasonera’s initial LTE services already launched, the surprise is perhaps that networks like AT&T are more cautious.

From a consumer point of view this below could be both interesting and challenging given the 2008/9 experience of bill shock:

Once voice standards for LTE are finalized, they are much more likely to be based on VoIP technology than on traditional cellular networks, especially since LTE is built entirely around IP. This means that once LTE is widely deployed, it could mean the end of minute-based cellular phone bills. Speaking at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas earlier this year, AT&T Wireless chief Ralph de la Vega said that LTE’s high bandwidth meant that carriers would eventually move toward pricing models that charge only for data volume, not for minutes.

The EU’s preparatory legislation on bill shock might make charging by data more complex in Europe than elsewhere, though initially the impact is going to be low key:

LTE deployments will pick up over the next few years and lead to 87 million LTE subscribers by 2014, according to the trade group, the GSMA.  However, the GSMA also thinks that HSPA technology will have a long shelf life and will keep on growing even as more operators begin adopting LTE.

The real interest of course is in broadening device types and applications so some of the good news of 2009 was the Mercedes myCOMMAND in-car telematics service trialed over LTE back in October. Here’s Mercedes:

Every time the engine starts myCOMAND automatically updates itself via the Internet and thus continuously provides up to date software. All retrieved data and information are always up to date, too, and available to the occupants in a simple and easy manner. Compared with current mobile devices, and in-dash systems, with myCOMAND the features and contents are not only up to date through the Internet, but are also presented in a much more user-friendly manner. The system offers the driver individually appropriate Internet services depending on the situation, making the whole experience more reliable and safer to use.

All the major car makers have connected car plans so we’re going to need  to get used to another form of payment plan, not just with the phone but also one overlaying the car HP or lease plan. I wonder how consumers are going to react to what looks like a confusing time ahead. We have more plans for them still of course.

NG Connect now has six proof of concept LTE projects underway…. including the multiplayer game from Fishlabs, Powerboat Challenge. The concepts driving online gaming are always going to be compelling, whether simple or complex, but again it raises the question: how does the consumer reconcile all these possibilities with their budget and budgetary control?

Is there room in here for new types of services that come to the aid of the consumer – what people like Doc Searls have called Vendor Relations Management (VRM) and do they belong around the handset? Is there a brand or a brand building opoprtunity that is decisively on the side of the consumer and that is all the more profitable and valuable for that?

In the retail space, telco-driven companies like Ribbit (BT owned) looked like showing the way. Ribbit’s Consumers’ Price application uses the BestBuy product catalogue as a resource to allow consumers to place reserve prices on products they are interested in, giving BestBuy access to solid discount opportunities as well as an understanding of consumer reservation pricing – a data set that every SaaS and free-to-premium vendor could do with. Trouble is it’s difficult to track down what’s happening with Consumers Price.

Potentially it opens a new way of seeing the consumer relationship and opens a new perspective on what makes a good brand. Here’s another example from an IBM project in Salerno, Italy:

“The first project aims to overcome architectural barriers to create a special route for the blind from a dedicated parking area to the Verdi Theatre. Smart sensors will be placed in the planking and will interact with smart canes, providing information and prompts on mobile phones, enabling the visually impaired to navigate around potential obstacles.”

That quote is courtesy of Wenovski, a new website/community aimed at improving the skills and knowledge of service designers. Well worth a look.

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In Car Apps

Dec 29th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

The Consumer Telematics Show which opens 6th Jan 2010 in Las Vegas asked industry experts to predict the top  in car Telematics innovation for 2010.

UPDATE via CNN below.

Here are three of those apps:

#5. The integration of Internet radio into cars is the most fundamental change in in-car audio entertainment since the introduction of tape and CD players over 25 years ago. It will deliver an explosion of consumer choice and control, fundamentally enhancing the driving experience virtually every time the consumer drives their car.

#4. The killer app will be augmented reality on the windshield. Because the only way to delivery location related advertisement is AR on the window with navigation guidance. You can find out the benefits from the iPhone Yelp application.

#3. Call it Tivo for cars. The same car companies that have in-vehicle TVs in the back seats (for kids etc.) will feature ability to “store” movies, cartoons etc. and/or have them streamed in real time. This will transform the in-vehicle experience as passengers will actually look forward to traveling and see it as a chance to stay entertained, kept informed.

UPDATE:  CNN reported also a couple of days back Ford is introducing Wifi to a range of cars in 2010:

The next generation of the Sync in-car entertainment and information system will use a USB mobile broadband modem to establish a secure wireless connection capable of supporting several devices simultaneously.

Some of that CNN post was picked up from this October WIRED.com article on the in-car internet:

Mercedes recently announced it has successfully tested in-vehicle internet applications — including web browsing, vehicle software updates and VOIP — on a prototype 4G network. It follows BMW’s internet-connected iDrive system and Chrysler’s Uconnect Web in-vehicle mobile hotspot. Most of the automakers, along with Microsoft, are following them into the pool.

This is how it’s happening so far according to Wired.com: “OnStar, Uconnect and the Pro edition of Toyota’s Japan-only G-BOOK for clues. They use cellular modems with associated data accounts, and customers pay as much as $30 a month. Other systems like Ford’s Sync and Toyota’s entry-level G-BOOK use Bluetooth to share the user’s personal cellphone account. Audi’s MMI (multimedia interface) web-connected nav system takes another approach, using Bluetooth to “borrow” the SIM profile of the user’s cellphone. It doesn’t require a separate fee, but it does require the customer to have a data plan and a phone on a SIM chip.”

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Predicting Apps Evolution

Dec 29th by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

Andrew Garcia over at eweek has a great post predicting a small number of big events in 2010. Read on past Andrew’s take on Windows 7 for his prediction on how the apps scene will evolve. I picked up the post from NokiaSymbian’s twitter feed.

Across the board, mobile developers have expressed dissatisfaction with elements of the App store model– dissatisfaction with app approval processes, marketing outreach potential, financial returns, audience reach and the burden of having to develop for multiple platforms. Taking a more Web-based approach relieves many of these concerns, as writing good code for the mobile Web once should apply to all devices rather than a single platform.

For a model of this approach, I applaud DiVitas Networks, which this year unveiled its new Web-based mobile unified communications software.  When I tested its previous solution in late 2008, I found the experience excellent on Nokia/Symbian but a major kludge on Windows Mobile. But now, with its new Web-based approach, DiVitas has found a way to deliver the majority of the same features to all mobile platforms that offer a rich Web browsing experience.

Andrew predicts: Read more »

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Symbian Foundation Looking to 2010

Dec 24th by Lee M. Williams Retweet Share on Facebook

by Lee Williams

Well, it’s been a big year and I want to take some time to sum up a few major points. I believe it is becoming clear that Symbian, both the platform and the organisation, is headed in a very positive direction in the coming year. This is due to the hard work and the commitments of a great number of people from around the ecosystem, and I want to send a special thanks to all of you.

We have good news as the year comes to a close. First, though it has been a huge amount of work getting the Foundation going, judging from comments on the blog and around the Web, we’ve seen both positive and constructive suggestions about our progress. From where we sit in the foundation, it’s been quite a journey to define what a Foundation like this should do, and to execute our role in various aspects of the marketplace.

While I am reading some of the comments on the web and taking the feedback on board as best I can,  it is clear that many recognise that the folks here and throughout the eco-system have worked incredibly hard to create a path breaking new initiative, and with little or no precedent to work off.

All involved should feel proud of their work toward this new frontier we have created. In looking at 2010 as a timeframe for even more progress, we are poised to continue to surpass expectations as to what we can accomplish in the marketplace with these initiatives and this is in large part due to the work completed and the foundation for progress established during this year, 2009.

Why does 2010 look so good? Well Nokia, a company that is clearly our largest initial contributor, could not have done more to support these concepts and to show their support for the Foundation and platform than the endorsement they gave us at their Capital Markets Day at the start of December. Let me elaborate upon what some of this means.

Symbian’s value in the future mobile market is its incredible flexibility, robustness and adaptability to future needs. We enjoy better multitasking capability, better power management, security, and scale of market than any mobile platform out there. It is clear that we have a unique offering, and an OS architected for mobile from day 1, and poised to continue to appeal to the marketplace at a tremendous scale.

Nokia’s endorsement of Symbian specifically marks out our future as a mobile computing and communications platform for the masses, globally marketed in smartphones costing $150 and under, and being an essential ingredient for helping others embrace the power of new types of communication.

Symbian will maintain it’s role as the smartphone for the masses which is where such a powerful, flexible platform belongs. An exciting aspect of this is that it also means that the offering will continue to have a huge impact on the lifestyles of people around the world.

There’ll be an estimated 4.6 billion subscriptions to mobile networks by the end of this year – just a few days away. To give you some sense of what this implies in terms of reach and significance, there are only 480 million newspapers circulated daily, around 1.1 billion personal computers, and 1.7 billion Internet users active globally.

From 2010 onwards Symbian powered smartphones will continue to bring the web to people who cannot afford a PC and who need to be on the move as a part of their lifestyle, perhaps because they might be farmers in a rural area of the India sub-continent, or small business owners in a remote area of China. We will be directly assisting them in linking them into a global economy, and we will be giving them computing power and access to essential applications and services in finance, payments, healthcare, transport, entertainment…and so on.

Through our apps community and future Symbian releases we’ll be bridging the gap between those 1.7 billion internet users and those among the 4.6 billion people who are mobile subscribers and who are not yet online. The future of the web, and all of it’s power to have a positive impact on people’s lives, is clearly mobile. This is a near term future, not one that is so far out there, and one that we can map and shape now. We see that what we do in our business and social lives here in the Symbian community will be dramatically more inclusive of the needs of hundreds of millions of people who so far have not had access to the benefits of computing and communications technology.

I’m looking forward to engaging you in a dialog about how that future should shape up, and what our collective role looks like. Thanks for being with us in 2009, and have a very Merry Christmas, and celebrated New Year.

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The Magic Hour

Dec 24th by Jim Clarke Retweet Share on Facebook

In the world of large scale software platform development, one of the basic platform attributes is build speed and a common question of capability is:

“How long does your build take?”

Experience shows this to be a loaded question with only one acceptable answer: 1 hour.

Anything higher and it may as well be 8 hours since it is not worth waiting during the day and can be put off overnight. Anything lower will raise suspicions and may lead to a full-day Agile workshop. So it was pleasing to note recently that we are now regularly building the Symbian platform in an hour(*).

Beyond just showing off, we’re excited about the ways in which we can build(!) on this capability to help the community:

  • Promoting the great work of the Raptor team, owners of the sbs tool which we use as the basis of our builds – we expect to start doing “continuous integration” where any change to sbs triggers a platform build using the new version.
  • Sharing of build times around the community and collaborating to drive community build speeds down – we look forwards to hearing about your experiences

—

(*) Well, pretty close. See Andy Simpson’s build machinery page for the smallprint.

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2010 Will Bring….

Dec 23rd by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

Chris Dudding let us use his best of 2009 list a couple of days back and then posted a summary of predictions for 2010. He was kind enough to let us borrow his good work once again.

After yesterday’s best of 2009, I had a look at what analysts predict will be big in 2010:

1. 2010 will be the year of operating system wars according to Mark Anderson of The Strategic News Service.

2. Lightspeed Venture Partners predict that Nokia or RIM will buy Palm.

3. Business Anywhere Blog thinks 2010 is the year of Android.

4. The compilation of analyst predictions on Technobabble 2.0 is the most comprehensive set I found.

5. IDC predicts a shift towards mobile platforms and Apple to launch a “iPad” tablet device (PDF report).

6. ComputerworldUK tips app stores and Android in Seven smartphone predictions for 2010

7. Dean Bubley’s Disruptive Wireless blog post on “Mobile Winners and Losers” cheers iPhone, Android and Augmented reality but doesn’t expect Near Field Communication (NFC) to take off.

8. IntoMobile thinks we won’t see any “flagship” devices in 2010 and Apple will introduce NFC support into the next iPhone.

9. 3g.co.uk predicts “A Device OS Bites the Dust” in 2010 Telecom Predictions.

10. Wireless Week asked industry leaders for their thoughts on what 2010 will bring. Mary McDowell of Nokia predicts “smartphones for more people”.

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Pipecleaner

Dec 23rd by gauravkatyal Retweet Share on Facebook

Besides cleaning pipes, Pipecleaner can be used for any application that calls for cleaning out small bores.

In the Symbian world, Pipecleaner is an initiative to speed up time to market for the first product coming out of a new Hardware/Software platform, or the first product created on an existing proven Hardware/Software platform.

OEMs and Semiconductor vendors are often reluctant to develop a product on a new platform because the time and knowledge required to get up to speed is quite significant. Pipecleaner will greatly reduce learning and development time.

WHAT does it offer?

Pipecleaner helps identify all the flaws, missing bits, performance tuning, etc or helps build know-how by putting product through the stringent process of integrating the Hardware/Software platform and pushing it through the quality assurance process required to ship a Device through a sales channel.

Pipecleaner project explains the entire lifecycle of development for every domain, including:

  • Selecting the hardware for any particular domain
  • Setting up the environment
  • Bringing up the hardware
  • Getting the packages
  • Power Management
  • Testing and Tuning

It offers “bring up” guides for the following domains:

1.    Bluetooth

2.    WLAN

3.    Environment Setup

4.    Board bring up & Localization

5.    Hardware Enablers

6.    Telephony

7.    Multimedia

8.    Security

9.    Power Management

Pipecleaner’s main aim is to help OEMs and Semiconductor vendors who have no previous experience or know-how of Symbian. Developers creating new phones, porting Symbian OS to new hardware or writing device drivers will experience reduced development time.

Professional services, OEMs and Semiconductor vendors with Symbian expertise are encouraged to fill out the missing bits on the Pipecleaner wiki pages.

To find out more details and to contribute, stay tuned to this space.

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Symbian-Guru’s Top 5

Dec 23rd by Haydn Retweet Share on Facebook

Rita from Symbian-Guru kindly let us reproduce a series of top 5s from 2009 Thanks Rita. We’ll run the top ten before the 31st I hope! Today the top 5 Symbian Uitilities.

Symbian-Guru’s 2009 Top 5 Symbian Utilities

By Dotsisx on December 17, 2009

In our December rundown of the Top 5 of everything that we’ve used and loved in 2009, we take a look today at the best utilities available for Symbian. In “Utilities”, we mean those tools that make using your Symbian device easier, as well as add or improve a certain missed functionality. Simply put, they’re the first applications we recommend you install on your phone.

1. Handy Taskman / Jbak Taskman

We couldn’t easily agree on one of these as Ricky is a Handy Taskman addict, while I’m more the Jbak Taskman fan. What we did agree on though, is that the task manager utility, represented by either of these, deserves the top spot in this countdown. Basically, these two allow you to manage all the current tasks on your device. Unlike the built-in Symbian task switcher, they show everything running, including hidden tasks like Contacts or Log or Gallery, and easily let you kill one of these if it hangs. They also provide a simple way to launch any application installed on your device, and show an accurate estimate of the remaining RAM, Internal Memory and Memory Card space in one graphically pleasing place. You can read our own comparison of the two in order to make up your mind, then download Jbak Taskman or try/buy Handy Taskman.

2. X-Plore

File managers come and go, but Lonely Cat Games’ X-Plore has earned a spot as one of the first applications I install on any device I have since 2007. It’s one of the most mature file managers available for Symbian, with a built-in ZIP and RAR capability, image video and audio previews, Inbox manager for bluetooth files, file/folder details, Hex editor, file type associations, great search functionality, shortcuts for almost every action, very decent UI for Symbian^1 as well as S60 3rd Edition, and a lot of customization options. Once you get used to X-Plore’s way of things, it’s almost impossible to switch to any other file manager, let alone the built-in one, as it’s simple and powerful at the same time. The best part about it though is that you can use it indefinitely for free, as long as you sit through the 3-second nag screen when it launches and exists. Get it here.

3. Converter Touch

Converter Touch

Of course, S60 has its own converter application, but have you ever tried to use the thing? It’s ugly, unintuitive, and takes a ton of time to manipulate through the different options. That’s why we absolutely love Offscreen Technologies Converter Touch. It’s gorgeous, incredibly intuitive to use, fast and accurate, supports multiple conversion categories and units, and best of all, it’s free. You can’t beat that. Get it from the Ovi Store.

4. cCalc and cCalcPro

cCalc and cCalcPro by ChuaWelic are without a doubt the most powerful and easiest to use scientific calculators for Symbian. Just install them on any device you have and forget about the built-in calculator. cCalc and cCalcPro both bring tons of scientific functions, including logarithms, trigonometry, statistics, finance and even some conversion tools. They also map all the functions to the keypad layout on your device so you can access anything with one click of a button instead of going around for hours using the dpad. Best of all? They’re free. cCalc is for most Symbian devices, while cCalcPro is dedicated to phones with QWERTY keypads, in order to get more use of the keys excess. Get them here (you might have to change your phone’s date back in order to install them as they were signed with an old certificate).

5. Psiloc World Traveler

With recent updates, Psiloc World Traveler has managed to wow us in terms of features, looks and simplicity. It’s one of those rare applications that has been optimized for the E71/E72/E63’s landscape screen, as well as for Symbian^1 touch handsets, all while working perfectly on regular S60 3rd handsets like the N86 8MP. World Traveler is easily the best free option available to follow the weather in one city for several days, as well as keep a tab on the World Clock in different parts of the planet, and best of all, it has a superb and simple currency conversion tool at hand. It also supports auto-updates, a daily weather forecast pop-up, and can put the weather on your homescreen as a to-do note. You can also expand it by buying a Flight Assistant, Travel Safe and Travel Plan plugins. Get it here.

Do you have any other favorite Symbian Utilities applications that didn’t make it to our Top 5? Please share them below in the comments.

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Improving Browser/Player Integration

Dec 22nd by martinpwebb Retweet Share on Facebook

I wanted to start a discussion about the ways in which the browser and the player could be more closely integrated, so as to improve the overall streaming video experience for end-users.  Here are some of the ideas that myself, YoSpace and Thomson Reuters came up with – please feel free to add to the list!

  • Enabling the player to jump to another URL on finishing playback: the use case is where a user receives a message or alert which links to a video.  Once the video has finished, the browser goes to a page to enable the user to learn more about what they have watched
  • Bandwidth detection in the device: enables the player to tell the server which stream quality to use based on the player’s knowledge of available bandwidth (e.g. 2G vs. 3G vs. WiFi bearer)
  • Phone can seamlessly integrate playback of a number of streams: for example, this could enable a news summary built from individual stories based on user preferences.  Or a service could feed in adverts at appropriate points in the stream.
  • Player awareness of when in an advert sequence: so transport controls can be disabled (enables easier monetisation of content, and hence better content for users)
  • Video hot-spots: the server can indicate hoyspot time offsets to the device, which can be used to trigger UI events.  For example, an initial summary of a news story could be expanded on based on some UI feedback, or a user could request more info following an advert (which would queue up a web page for viewing later)

These ideas are quite focused on hooks to improve services.  While I agree there are many improvements needed to the direct end-user experience, I strongly believe it is important for us in the device community to work closely with service providers, since providing a better platform for the guys who build video services ultimately leads to better products for end-users.

So – do you fancy a go at building these improvements?  Get in touch!

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