Nokia’s intentions toward Maemo and how the new, open-source platform fits in with their existing S60 smartphone OS have kept the rumor-mongers going for months now. Only last week, SlashGear columnist Avi Greengart asked whether the Finns should junk S60 in favor of Maemo; according to this slide from Nokia’s Capital Markets Day, the prognosis is actually worse for S40.
Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 conference was a chance to dream happily about the future of mobile devices, today the company has put its stats where its mouth is. It’s Capital Markets Day for the Finns, and while there’s plenty of talk of targeting average selling price erosion and flat market share in 2010, the most interesting stuff for the geeks among us are its aims for smartphones. Key among those is re-engineering the Symbian UI and delivering what Nokia describe as two “major product milestones”, midway through and then at the end of 2010.
We may be giving Sony Ericsson a darn good scolding on the one hand for their XPERIA X10 hijinks, but we’re a little more interested by their new WebSDK for Android and Symbian Foundation devices. The Sony Ericsson WebSDK promises a metaphorical hand-holding for developers hoping to have their wares nestle up against the company’s own apps, whether that be on the XPERIA X10 or the SE Satio. It’s called Nexus, seemingly the official title for the UX platform Sony Ericsson were talking about with regards the X10.
Remember the BeagleBoard prototyping platform, which was put to such cost-effective use in the DIY Beagle MID earlier this year? Expect to see plenty more of the $149 OMAP3 device in future, now that Symbian Foundation have released their latest build for the platform. Speaking at Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 conference today, Symbian Foundation’s Shaun Puckrin discussed the roadmap for Symbian^3 and Symbian^4, the next-shipping versions of the platform, together with some of the functionality that will be hard-baked into the OS.
Like an ex-partner suddenly hitting the gym and prompting some relationship regrets (yes, we’re shallow here in the tech world), Symbian Foundation have caught our eye with a new demo video of what they’re suggesting might be a nifty future UI for the platform. Part of Lee Williams’ keynote at SEE 2009 last month, the video shows a device with lashings of augmented reality and location-based services, together with social networking integration.
Video demo after the cut
Nokia rumors a-plenty today, as UK paper The Guardian suggest that the Finnish company are planning to release a touchscreen Android smartphone so as to counter falling Symbian shares. However, Nokia themselves have vehemently denied any such intentions, with a spokesperson quoted as saying “everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.”
Sony Ericsson may think they can keep us sated with cheap sliders and candybars, but we all know that unless they whip out the Idou sometime soon it’s game over. Happily that just might be happening in October this year, with a German PR rep for the company supposedly going on record to confirm their planned 2009 Idou launch schedule.
SlashGear Japan
