It’s Super Bowl Sunday so the sports fans out there looking for something to do to kill some time until the game comes on can check out this week’s week in review. We saw some cool gear last week so let’s get right into it. You might think after Apple unveiled its iPad tablet the rumors would go away, but alas, that isn’t correct. Apple is rumored to be working on a new larger screen tablet that runs Mac OS X.
Nokia weren’t tipped to be announcing anything significant at Mobile World Congress 2010, but according to DailyMobile there’s at least one new handset on its way to Barcelona. The Nokia C5 has leaked, a Symbian S60v3 FP2 device with HSDPA/HSUPA, a 3.2-megapixel camera and a 2.2-inch QVGA display.
We’re playing sceptics again today (you can tell because of the official sceptic-hat we’re wearing) but according to Chinese MaxPDA forum member selith you’re looking at a Nokia 5700 running BlackBerry OS 4.6.0.305. Kicking off a fourteen page thread of people various praising his work and doubting it, selith then produced a video seemingly showing the handset in action.
Starting Thursday, the source code for Symbian’s operating system platform will become entirely open source and free (Symbian’s software currently powers most of the smartphones in the world, and is owned by Nokia). Tomorrow hence the day developers will be able to download, alter, and apply the software at no costs at all.
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Nokia have announced that, in just under two weeks, its free Ovi Maps Navigation app has been downloaded 1.4m times. In fact, the company broke the 1m barrier at the end of last week. Unveiled in its new, subscription-free form on January 21st, this latest version of Ovi Maps includes spoken turn-by-turn directions together with formerly-premium content such as Lonely Planet guides.
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Nokia haven't been shy about their ambitious cellphone OS plans for the coming year, but according to Michael Hsu, general manager of Nokia Taiwan, they're jumping version numbers in order to get there. Hsu has apparently confirmed that Nokia intend to launch Symbian^3 devices in Q3 2010, leapfrogging over Symbian^2 in the process, before hitting Symbian^4 in either late 2010 or early 2011.
Was the Nokia N-Gage cruelly culled before its time was due? Reception to the Finnish gaming cellphones was mixed – if by mixed you mean some hated it and others didn’t quite see the point – and eventually Nokia killed off their dedicated handsets. Over at Recombu, however, they’re wondering whether modern chipsets and an iPhone-fuelled mobile gaming scene could spell success for the platform, and they’ve even come up with a concept, the Nokia Ovi Orion.
Concept video after the cut
Nokia’s N900 is developing quite a name for itself as a great platform for hacking, and after seeing the Maemo smartphone dual-boot Android a week ago, now it’s the turn of some classic Mac OS X action. Toni Nikkanen managed to get Mac OS X 10.3 – the Power PC version – running on his N900, though to be fair it’s not a native install; instead, the Apple OS runs in the PearPC emulator.
Video demo after the cut
Nokia have released their latest firmware for the N97 smartphone, the so-called public release of v2.1. PR 2.1 for the Nokia N97 brings with it improvements in touchscreen scrolling, a more stable browser, improved call reliability and an improved media player, along with more stability in image and video handling.
Nokia’s decision to push Ovi Maps into the limelight looks like it could have had a nasty knock-on effect, at least if you’re a Nav4All user. The multi-platform navigation company has announced that it is being forced to go offline by the end of the month, after mapping data provider NAVTEQ declined to extend their licence agreement. While no reason was given for the decision, Nav4All do discretely point out Nokia’s 100-percent ownership of NAVTEQ.
SlashGear JP
