The Handheld Media Powerhouse - N96

if you've glanced through my blogs you know I love the N95, no other phone comes close to it in features and capabilities (go ahead and argue with me about it) and the only fair comparison would be with the iPhone. while iPhones has its strengths, based on a prototype of iPod with a phone, beautiful design and interface (never expected less from Apple), it is still very underutilised and very limited in available software and utilities and easily beaten by the good old N95 in that. Obviously Apple will be working hard to make up for in the subsequent models and will be learning from its mistakes as the newcomer in the smartphone world.

Well... if you still haven't bought either one of them, then dont! iPod I am sure will mature in those areas in due course of time like all new products. As for N95, the long awaited successor N96 is here and lives up to the expections! its a real media powerhouse of a phone with an endless feature list.

I am sure we'll be getting a lot of buzz around this baby with reviews and comparisons, for now just check out this video here:



5MP high quality camera with Carl Zeis lense, dual flash and really bright video light (check the video clip at the bottom), 30fps VGA video recording with video stablisation, 2.8" screen with the sound through stereo "3D" speakers for gaming and music, built-in digital TV reciever (its actually got a little stand so you can put it down and watch videos or TV, check the video clip above). GPS with assisted GPS support and automatic insertion of capture location (for pictures), 16GB memory (which can be beefed up to 24GB with a microSDHC card and of course, HSPDA (3.5 G) and WiFi... *phant phant* please excuse my while I wipe off my drool!

and obviously its running on the Symbian S60 - OS 9.2 Feature Pack 2.0

you gotta see to believe how bright its video light really is:



Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal

N96 leaked info

i've always loved the N95 (as you can tell from my previous posts), specially the 8GB, certainly the coolest phone in its class, better than iPhone in fact.
and now there's leak photos and info of N96 ! based on Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2. total coolness.


bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Windows Mobile latest vapour

Well a startup is giving a to go to tactics that are made famous by Microsoft itself; cheap vapourware tactics. As in touting software that doesn't exist. Their latest attempt for Windows Mobile: Skyfire... err... note to Microsoft and its affiliates: if you can't stop copying everyone else's products, can you try being original in at least naming the copied products? you know... just to differentiate yourself from software pirates.

ok so what is Skyfire? well its a browser for Windows Mobile, akin to one Microsoft had promised in December it will kick iPhone's butt (laughing already? waite, there's more to come). Ok so couple of questions:

Q: Why does Windows Mobile need Skyfire?
A: cuz its current browser sux.

Q: So what makes it so cool?
A: well it can browse the web that will support features which... umm... well some of the other smartphone browsers already support and have been in the market for a while. (check S60 based smartphones for instance)

Q: So its like a normal web browser?
A: Not really, normal browsers download webpages direct to your phone as opposed to Skyfire's approach which uses a proxy-server to send out web content to your Windows Mobile phone. Meaning, another computer does the browsing then sends out supposedly cached content to your Windows Mobile based smartphone (Ahem! does anyone else hear several alarm bells ringing?)

Q: So if the actual processing is done on some other server not my phone, they can see what I am browsing?
A: Interesting question, and here is some really interesting read from Skyfire's private info:

""When you use the Browser, Skyfire has access to, and in many cases will monitor, your Browser Usage."

"Browser Usage Information includes such information as which websites and programs you access or download on your Device, how long you visit such websites and use such programs, your activities (such as products purchased or advertisements viewed) on such websites, which specific areas of a website or webpage you use and for how long, websites you bookmark, search terms you use, referring/exit pages, browser and platform types, the geographic location in which your Device is being used and information you provide on third party websites."

Whoa.... like are you serious? Sounds to me if the US government had gifted Osama with a Windows Mobile phone running Skyfire, he would be long caught and dead by now, they could have monitored his every move! With this kind of browser, who needs spyware or viruses??

But wait, there is one more question...

Q: Where is Skyfire?
A: At the moment, nowhere actually. Like no one has seen it or used it, or download it or allowed to test it or know if it really exists. OK of all the people, even the staff of msmobiles.com, which provides daily news and information to help Windows Mobile users make better use of their devices, has to say this "...we must conclude that it is just another vaporware product ... that in reality may never materialize as a commercial product." - 28 Jan 2008.

not laughing yet? well neither are the Windows Mobile users. So what about the one that Microsoft had promised in December? Here is some interesting buzz their announcement is creating like from electronista.com:

• Pfft. More like, "Microsoft copying iPhone Safari in next WinMobile."
• Always, MS is saying their next version of vapor/crapware will attempt to copy what [already] works now, except to add 10 steps and requires help from IT department.
• more vaporware from Micro$oft..... Promising tomorrow what already exists on the market today.
• Ha Ha Ha... "Microsoft has not issued a schedule for when it expects any of the updates to appear", oh that brings tears to my eyes .. good luck with that Microsoft..

Umm... what can I say.... they've already said it all.

Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal

Controlling your PC with your phone

thats right! if you didnt know this before now you do. You can not only use your mobile phone as a TV remote (since ages ago), you can use your regular mobile phone to control sotware applications on your PC (or Mac). Specially if your phone is based on Symbian S60, and even better if you have an E-series phone. In fact the new Salling Clicker software is actually native for E-series phones like the E61. And it uses WiFi or Blue Tooth for connecting to your PC, and does all the detection for you. PRETTY cool!

thats all there's to it. you can control software and send and recieve data and sort of be able to see whats happening on the PC as well.

there's are a lot of possibilities here folks! all depends on how far can your evil mind think. Look at what people were doing with a simple infrared control 10 years ago! consider this: when Palm Pilot was still the rage, car thieves actually used Pilot's infrared port to pick up frequencies of car locks from a distance. then used their Palm Pilot to unlock and steal the cars. this became quite a problem in the UK if I remember correctly.

and I'm not even going to mention what people did with the zero lux infrared capability of the olddd Soney handycams (my blog is PG13 remember?). Point is, we give you the stuff, your devilish mind should do the rest, and there's a LOT of devilish stuff you can do with a kickass smartphone like the E61 and its siblings.

Bilal
http://buzzzword.blogspot.com/

how to make S60 browse like iPhone

if you wanna get more out of browsing from your smartphone, there's this guy Harri Salminen who's come up with a pretty cool way to make websites think your S60 phone (come on, its about time you found out your phone is running Symbian (or it should!)) is actually an iPhone. and why the h*ll does that matter? well like Harri says, thanks to all the marketing buzz behind iPhone, many major websites have special optimized pages for browsing on the iPhone, when your S60 phone can render pages just as well, or better.

The screen shots give a general idea about the difference between a standard webpage on the phone screen compared with iPhone optimized:

normal S60 browsing

with the iPhone hack

So your Nokia or any other phone running S60 (depending on what model you have) can do just the same with this little hack. You can download the hack from Harri's website below:

S60 to iPhone hack

Harri had actually encountered a little bug which wasn't letting his N95 make the most of this phone, but thanks to another genius, Robin Jewsbury, there's a fix for that little bug too:

S60 to iPhone bug fix


happy browsing!


Bilal
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Cash Prizes for Flash Lite developers

well if you are into developing for Flash, now there is better and more interesting incentives for you to flex your expertise a bit: Ca$h. The upcoming games portal playyoo.com has just offered a prize fund of $25,000 for Flash Lite games.

They also have setup a a sneak preview currently on offer section on their website to download some of their current cool stuff directly onto your smartphone. I've read that this game "Dawn of the Fly" is rather addictive but I havent tried it myself yet.


Flash Lite is already available on all the major smartphone OSs, but majority of the smartphone models supporting Flash Lite at the moment are running S60 on Symbian.

You can get basic information on Flash Lite on Adobe's website and for tools, SDKs and detailed stuff, Nokia has setup a forum for Flash Lite developers.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Making love to a plastic doll

Ok check this, touch screen is expected to be a prominent feature in most mobile phones by 2011 with upto 200 million units. Well that doesnt work for me unless it comes with tactile feedback (or haptics as they call it). Ever tried writing email or sms with touch screen? or played any games using touch screen? eugggghhh!! thats like making love to a plastic doll! I'm sure lot of you guys know how that feels like right? no feedback no response, no "feel'! sounds like someone you know?

No, if you want touch screen it BETTER come with tactile feedback so that at least you know what you're touching! As far as I know, so far only Symbian S60 has the capability for mobile phones, as demonstrated by Nokia last month. And hopefully we should be able get our hands on some of these feedback babies in the coming spring. Lets see when the rest can catch up.



I know what most of you are thinking now, "if only someone could make plastic dolls with tactile feedback".

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal/

Web Browser Short-Cuts for S60

Here are some handy web browser short cut for S60 smartphones posted by Mark Guim:

• Press 1 to open your bookmarks.
  
• Press 2 to search for keywords in the current page.
  
• Press 3 to return to the previous page.
  
• Press 5 to list all open windows.
  
• Press 8 to show the page overview of the current page.
  
• Press 8 again to zoom in and view the desired section of the page.
  
• Press 9 to enter a new web address.
  
• Press 0 to go to the Start Page.
  
• Press * or to zoom the page in or out.

Symbian is ripe for developers

all of a sudden things seem to have started falling in place for developers to pay attention to Symbian. So many little things that add up to a lot, and hard to cover in one posting. But the end results will certainly be exciting.

First off, the smartphones are actually selling much faster. Faster in fact, than laptops! According to In-Stat, "sales of smartphones will grow at more than a 30% compound annual growth rate for the next five years." and smartphone operating systems will grow at double digits each year until at least 2012. The devices will very much become the work and infotainment companions in the next few years. In May this year, Gartner predicts, nearly half a billion phone subscribers for mobile TV alone, by 2010. Still more staggering is the figure is that of WiFi phone sales whichi s expected to top $145 billion in 2010.


The numbers alone represent how big a market this is about to become for developers. But the platforms themselves have now become more sophisticated and ripe for developers with tools and supporting framework.

Symbian already has the largest smartphone OS market share by far. So developers would definitely be hungry for more options, tools and framework for writing software for Symbian.
Like the recently announced Symbian60 Touch UI, Sensor Framework and UI Accelerator Toolkit. You can find plenty of detail on this framework on this artcile by Rafe Blandford.


Red Five Labs has just released Net60 (beta 1) for immediate download. Net60 enables managed Windows Mobile applications to run unchanged on S60 devices. So developers can now use C# and Visual Basic .NET in Visual Studio, and use the .NET Compact Framework environment to build applications for Symbian devices.

PHP and mySQL are going to be available for S60 devices in early 2008, with full LAMP stack.

Even Linux developers will now have their greatest opportunity on Symbian OS.

and to top it all, Symbian has just bought over Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd. (‘MoGenesis’), lock stock and barrel! It does show some serious development ambitions on part of Symbiam. I have not been able to find yet what this company specificially develop, but its certainly one of the leading developer of smart OS mobile applications for the fastest growing smartphone market. Interestingly, before founding this company, it's CEO Dennis Kung held two senior management positions at Microsoft Corporation where he worked for eleven years.

The time is ripe for developers to take this platform seriously, because Symbian is sure to become one of the most lucrative OS's to develop for in the coming years.


Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal

Smartphones showdown

any of you read Wired magazine? well... neither do I. well on occasion. but its probably the best known technology magazine, specially in terms of culture and economics.

Anyway! The good old Wired magazine had a smartphone show down last week. To be frank I would not really have guessed who came on top, with so many models coming out nowadays and its not so easy to pick a "winner". But from the best of the lot, Wired Mag has picked Nokia E61i. most notably for its fast and effiecient Symbian OS, which according to the mag "puts Windows Mobile to shame by loading apps almost instantly". Actually the phone comes on top in terms of internet connectivity, collection of business and media apps, and 11 hours, thats right ELEVEN hours of talk time!... on a smartphone!



There is some interesing stuff to read about the other smarphones too, and why they didnt take the spot from Nokia, including BlackBerry. My favourite quote from all the reviews there would be "All work and no play makes a phone a BlackBerry", haha! you said it Rick!

Interestingly but not surprisingly, the magazine has noted Windows Mobile 6 and its sluggishness, and cumbersomeness wherever used.

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal/

The next big thing!

ok actually I dont really know what the next big thing would be, but I think ScreenPlay on Symbian phones is just about to bring it to ya. Waite... you gotta read this one!

ScreenPlay demo from Symbian's website

What made me eternally fall in love with Commodore 64 beyond anything else was its graphics and sound experience long before home computers became main stream. The good old 64 is probably the UGLIEST little computer ever built, but it had the graphics and sound chip made in heaven! thats what made it the biggest selling computer of ALL times.

Yes my fellow romantics, love is all about the experience. Ask Lucy Liu why she keeps coming back to me for more!
Well... smartphones have finally matured to a level where they really can go beyond functionality (sorry blackberry lovers) or cool factor (sorry iPhone lovers) and actually provide a real "experience"!

What the hell am I talking about? well it would be hard to say in words, because you've got to experience it yourself. And you will definitely be able to do that in the next couple of months when the upcoming Symbian60 based smartphones with ScreenPlay and FreeWay hit the market shortly. Seriously, I wouldnt buy any phone right now and rather save my money for these new phones to come out. The whole smartphone scene is about to get transformed in the next two quarters for good. The experience that ScreenPlay based smartphone displays will be able to prodive to users just doesnt exist right now. Combine that with much faster richer broad-band like experience of FreeWay, and you've got yourself something really... beautiful!

Guys... I think its time to fall in love again. Nothing will replace my beloved old Commodore 64 in my heart, but I think in the next couple of months I can finally get a smartphone that can really be my companion. And you guys thought I am not romantic??

Bilal Zaheer
http://elanist.com/bilal