HTC has said that it is considering buying a mobile operating system. HTC have noted that the company has discussed this internally but will not act “on impulse”.
Now that HP’s WebOS device production has been discontinued, HP have been seeking licensees to purchase the OS and use it on their own hardware. It is speculated that HTC and Samsung are concerned about Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility and may wish to seek over operating systems to keep their competitive edge.
Nokia 700 (Image: Supplied)
Despite plans for Windows Phone 7, Nokia isn’t saying farewell to Symbian just yet. The company has announced three new phones, the Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600 – all featuring NFC technology and all running the upcoming Symbian Belle OS.
Nokia has finally released its newest update to the Symbian OS, Symbian Anna. Featuring a revamped user interface and brand new features, it hopes to rectify some of the reasons on why many in the tech community really hate it.
Nokia has announced the Australian availability for its all-in-one business smartphone designed for the BlackBerry’s target market – the corporate worker. Featuring a 4-inch display and a full QWERTY keyboard, it allows the use of both a touchscreen interface or using the keyboard.
Google had admitted in its Mobile World Congress keynote that it held “confidential negotiations” with Nokia in order to have it be one of the big name users of the Android platform before the Finnish mobile maker chose to partner with Microsoft and Windows Phone 7.
Nokia and Microsoft have announced that it will be partnering up with each other, seeing Nokia finally ditching its Symbian platform as its primary OS for Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 – a huge move for both companies as both try to compete with Google and Apple.
Welcome to the Morning Briefing for Tuesday 21 December, where we highlight the tech stories from across the web and what we are watching here at TECHGEEK.com.au.
Here’s what we are watching:
Nokia’s attempt to beat the iPhone in its own game of slim, touchscreen mobile devices continues with the latest incarnation of its attempt to stay relevant – the Nokia N8. With better features such as a 12 megapixel camera with flash, 3.5-inch screen and expandable memory, does it succeed in attempting to better the competition?
Nokia has today announced that it will bring out a new music phone that will use its now-rebranded Ovi Music Store, the Nokia 5250. Like previous attempts, this will feature a touchscreen and no slide-out keyboard, and also features a sleek body.
After several years with Symbian, the open source mobile OS that it help to create, Nokia will be dumping the mobile OS in favour for the MeeGo platform it is developing with Intel. While this is was a long time coming, Nokia announced that the N8 will be the final device that will run on Symbian.
Nokia has brought out a new phone announcement, with the Nokia C6. Using Symbian, the phone has a 3.2-inch touchscreen with a slide-out keyboard, and features a five megapixel camera with flash and autofocus. It also comes preloaded with Ovi Maps – which was made free by Nokia in order to compete with Google Maps and the iPhone – and has access to social networking site Facebook, with your feed popping up on the home screen.
We sent some more questions before we published our interview with Nokia’s Purnima Kochikar, Vice President of Forum Nokia; but we didn’t get them answered before today. So, here is (what we deem) Part Two of the e-mail interview with her.
This week saw Nokia hold a developer day in Sydney; and before the event took place, TECHGEEK.com.au managed to get an e-mail interview with Purnima Kochikar, the Vice President of Forum Nokia – the developer community. We talked about Ovi and Nokia’s embrace of open source technology – as well as Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo.
Microsoft seems to be expanding outside Windows Mobile Phone, and who can blame them? A declining market share and huge rivals like RIM, Apple and Symbian taking over most of its share. Today, all the Android users will be delighted (or not) that Microsoft will be bringing its Tag application to the device.
While 2009 might not be a year to remember when consumer demand was very low – before increasing at the latter end of the year – Symbian still dominates the smartphone market, according to Gartner. However, it might need to do some more to increase its market share after it dipped from 52.4 percent in 2008 to 46.9 percent in 2009, despite an increase of units sold.