Family portrait

My most loved Nokia N900, along with other devices,

2. Google Nexus - Android Gingerbread

3. Nokia C7 running Symbian/Nokia Belle

4. IPhone 4

My preference follows the list above :)

Object of desire

News that shook the software world

Motorola Considers Separating its Mobile Devices Unit:

[ Moto pressrelease ]

Or selling to its compitator?? [ should SE buy Moto ]

Microsoft to buy yahoo ?

Nokia acquires Trolltech

Screenplay, Freeway illustrated by symbain

Remember in my other post i had mentioned about the 2 new technology symbian introduced to us.

well, if words weren’t enough to explain such a beautiful concept , here are the video illustration of the same.

Points to be note:

1. Note the home screen, do u recognize that icon on the top left of the screen J
2. Notice the tap on the screen to receive the incoming call? Have you seen a similar big white DOT

In my opinion Nokia - symbian marriage is getting stronger and stronger as years go by.This Screenplay technology is the driving force for Nokia’s S60 Touch or other way also applies.

Nokia and symbian together are ready to take over the smartphone world. Will it happen we just have to wait and watch.

In the mean time they have a big challenge to over come :)

Symbian Dissected

The greatest and the most unassailable software fortress has been broken.I am talking about about Symbian's Platform Security.This has come as a shock to everyone.The impregnable platform is no more safe and has amazed all veterens of symbian os.This has opened the doors and paved way for all the 3rd part software to easyly access the system files which symbian never wanted.

As a symbian developer i never thought "symbian Platform security" could be broken!! Well it has already been done according to this post at http://symbaali.info/ he even has a post like this

"Goodbye S60 Platform Security, Hello CAPABILITIES!"

Symbian was boasting about their platform security.This came as a slap on their face. In fact Symbian would be in a state of shock now since the hack was fueled by Nokia's Firmware update "NSU" .
This person was able to intercept firmware downloaded by NSU make some modifications and then flash it on to the device and voila!! you have a device which can grant full all access to the symbian file system system.

He refers to using a simple "SWIPOLICY.INI" file which is SoftWare Instalation Policy
the description can be found in Symbian developer library and is well documented.
According to the document

When installing native Symbian OS packages (.SIS files) onto a device, the code performing the installation (the Software Inst aller, sometimes referred to as SWI) first reads the settings in a policy file in ROM (swipolicy.ini) to determine how the installation should proceed. Swipolicy.ini is configured by a device manufacturer prior to device shipping.

This document describes the contents of tha

t policy file and the effect the settings have upon software installation. Swipolicy.ini is not divided into sections and parameters can occur in any order. This document applies to Symbian OS v9.x and onwards.

On a phone, swipolicy.ini is located in z:\system\data\. On the emulator, this corresponds to \epoc32\release\platform\build\z\system\data\.

Finally after flashing the modified firmware file t he File wil dictate how the SWI [sofware installer, which is responsible for all the installation happens on the phone] behaves.

Below is the screen shot of the file location after flashing :

and the contents of an unaltered firmware are as follows:[swipolicy.ini]

AllowUnsigned = false
MandatePolicies = false
MandateCodeSigningExtension = false
Oid = 1.2.3.4.5.6
Oid = 2.3.4.5.6.7
DRMEnabled = true
DRMIntent = 3
OcspMandatory = false
OcspEnabled = true
AllowGrantUserCapabilities = true
AllowOrphanedOverwrite = true
UserCapabilities = NetworkServices LocalServices ReadUserData WriteUserData UserEnvironment
AllowPackagePropagate = true
SISCompatibleIfNoTargetDevices = false
RunWaitTimeoutSeconds = 600
AllowRunOnInstallUninstall = false
DeletePreinstalledFilesOnUninstall = true

The hack is simple and straight forward, yet it may not be that simple to execute from everyone but the point is, even such a security can be broken!!
This has been confirmed by the Forum nokia champions like antonypranata.

Now its all left to symbian and Nokia to battle it out ant the next few weeks would be very interesting.

The hack isn't just about granting full access to 3rd party applications, it has much more severe.Lets wait what the giants have to say about this. Symbian and Nokia i think never had been challenged to this heights. well its a wake up call to all the big corporate.

Up close with s60 touch

I found these flash illustration of Nokia's New S60 touch interface

Seeing these, i am quite disappointed, its no where near the Rich User Experiance offerd by iPhone.
But hey! this can play direct-youtube i.e. flv thanks to Adobe's Flashlite3 [a powerful runtime engine for mobile]

And i would also like to bring this in to the lime light. if you closely observer the clicks on the button , the buttons seem to have come alive [i.e press and release like physical buttons] this is what Nokia means by "Tactile feedback" which appears in their press release

in short Tactile feedback lets you feel what you’re touching.Pressing a button gives you a firm fall-through sensation that let's you know it was pressed. A disabled button is stiff and buzzes, to let you know that your press is being ignored. And when dragging you feel a soft springiness, with only a light touch needed to move across the surface.

How can this provide a better awareness of the device's response and improv the user experience?
well, it senses not only the location of your touch, but also the force with which you're pressing, the area of contact between your finger and the surface, the distance that the surface has been depressed and its velocity — each updated one hundred times per second. This enables application designers to create powerful and expressive user interfaces.
Source

with all these technologies fusing at one place, we expect to see a lot of innovations to hit mobile market.

we all know what happens when the market leaders fails to innovate.Hope all the other big players catchup and be a strong contender to Nokia and Apple

Nokia gets an Apple touch

Nokia the mobile giants gets the ipod's Click Wheel kind off interface on to there multimedia beast. Nokia likes to call it the navi™ Wheel

Nokia introduced this interface with the new Nokia N81 mobile

Note: the original provider is synaptics visit here for more details

see the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZ5krLWcq4

also visit
http://europe.nokia.com/A4577199

Nokia 5310 xpressmusic™

This device is been in the news for quite sometime and today i got to see the device for real, and doesn't this silence all the symbian freaks!!

This is an AWSOME device with S40 5th Edition, A2DP support and a 320 x 240 screen.It will also include 2 megapixel camera and microSDHC support!!!!

And the best part is, its gonna be very cheap. So guys look out for this amazing kid on the non-smartphone[difficult to judge to which category this has to go]

i was unable get images of 5310, so i have used my "SKILLS" to give a very rough sketch :p

The dedicated Music Keys are to the left of the Screen, its on a skewed plane and not vertical [refreshing ur geometry :)]

And i forget to mention, its an Ultra Slim Phone by Nokia :)

WTF : It doesn't run on SymbianOS, so what!! it does most of the task you can do with a Symbian Smartphone

Now there is a very very thin line between the s60 and s40 devices. If s40 can match the features of s60 then My predictions may come true

=================Update==========================
Here is this eyecandy on Nokia's website

The real Pic :)

with all these features, i am certainly falling for this device :P

Is S40 the future of S60??

Recall mania

Prestigious Mobile manufacturing company Nokia joins the "Product Recall League" [Dell, sony...]

Batteries used in a range of Nokia handsets potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging,causing the battery to dislodge. Of 300 million BL-5C batteries manufactured last year, 46 million belong to the dodgy batch.

Nokia blames it on to their suppliers like Matsushita, who have manufactured some where around 46 million batteries between December 2005 and November 2006.

Nokia advices the users of this product to monitor a mobile device while charging that contains a BL-5C battery.

Nokia and Matsushita offer to replace any BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.

List of the Mobile Phone using BL-5C battery is here

What i advice is "Get out and have it changed".

And if your devices doesnot have BL-5C,  even then please donot use your phone while charging.

What if?

what if the most successful marriage in the smartphone industry breaks?
I am pointing to Nokia-symbian success story. This duo started the smartphone race and now they are the leader in this space.
Symbian the most powerful, sophisticated mobile operating system.
Nokia, Currently the world's largest manufacturer of mobile handset.

Success of the symbian as a powerful OS can not be narrated with out Nokia, if symbian is doing so well in the smartphone market, its because of Nokia. A Solid proof of this is the failure of other symbian licensee like Sony Ericsson, Panasonic , Siemens, Samsung. Nokia has leveraged the partnership and come out with some truely amazing phones. Nokia was able to do this not just because it holds the higest stake in Symbian,but because of their UI Framework for Symbian.The famous Series60 .Nokia exploited Symbian OS's features to come out with their advanced smartphones which, UIQ and sorry to say even NTTDOCOMO's FOMA failed to do.
What ever smartphone we talk about, here, use and addore are mainly S60 devices. Sony Ericsson's UIQ phones like p800, p900 and even p990i failed to impress geeks :)
in fact even Nokia launched a UIQ2.1 based phone [6708]which for all obvious reasons failed.

Do all these scenarios and facts/figures ring a bell in your mind? It did for me!
Nokia is the sole reason for the success of the Symbian OS.

Nokia recently announced the shipment of 100 millionnt S60 device.[what a success!!], but for nokia this doesn't come cheap because of the royalty[though Nokia hold 48% stake in symbian] this royalty issue is an unwanted burden for the leader on mobile filed

In India people buy mobile phones based on the following criteria

1. Brand
2. Looks
3. Features
4. Cost

Cost has become the least bothered criteria for an average Indian when he go out to buy a mobile [ This has become the trend now]

They are least bothered about what is running inside their Mobile phone and nokia already has won the heart of million Indians with there tough, rugged but yet stylish mobile phones in India.
I have seen people using a phone like N93i and yet do not know how to switch between running tasks!!! of course we can not expect every person who uses a smartphone to be a geek :P

The motivation behind this article came after i came across MotoRokr E6. This obviously is not a challenger for the smartphone contest, but yet for as low as 14k INR this baby is more attractive than N73 which is pricze tagged for 17k INR. I would recommend for non geek users to go ahead and buy this rather than pay 4k extra for something which "IT CAN DO THIS, IF YOU BUY THAT APPLICATION"

Friend: Motorokr E6 has a business card reader !!
ME: We had developed it long back for symbian.
Friend: why dont i see it on any of your symbian phones.
ME: you can see on some phones and if you don't have it , then you have to buy it :)
Friend: #@$@ #% !!!, i am buying E6.

this is the actual conversation i had with one of my friend how wanted to buy a "GOOD PHONE"

The only draw back of E6 is that , its from Motorola :), u can guess the drawbacks

As i previously mentioned price is not a criteria. If a phone with more INBUILT functionality can be bought at a lower [or even at the same price ] as a symbian phone then why buy a symbian phone?

Nokia has established theire brand name even with theire series40 devices and now it has matured such an extent that it can do multitasting

This is the time Nokia should think beyond Symbian and venture into other options and even Linux . We know nokia is doing it from a long time and we even talked about nokia porting its s60 to Linux platform[still unclear]. What i would say is, forget about porting s60 and look at s40 . they even have come up with the S40 5th edition. UI is the make or brake decisions on device like mobile phone and i think S40 should be given more attention.It has the potential of being close to S60. And look at devices like N800 and N770, what is Nokia doing with tablet PCs?

E6 is running on linux and the UI looks a lot similar to UIQ2 and much better than motorola's other linux based devices and the interaction is much smoother.

With symbian OS 9.5 there is a significant saving on Phone build Cost of the manufacturer.This implies a Truly smartphone at an affordable price. Hope NOKIA would try to cut down the cost of their symbian lineup phone with all the software and the hardware getting cheaper.

It's an art

Dismantling any electronic device doesn't need special skills but if you want to practice that on something like a mobile phone, you need to give it a thought before even you get your glouse on.

Recently i found this old video on youtube and seeing this i must say "Dismantling is an art"
and here, it is Executed with perfection.


These devices are engineering masterpieces

Need to say anything?

is this is thefinal verdict?
You never know how people react to the techno wars between the big guns
Apple known for its innovative ideas and of course the fancy design has won the hearts of million with there "i"devices [iMac, iPod ] and now the new cake in the row is the iPhone. it has already created a big wave in the smartphone market.But is it worth all the hype??
Look at this Wonder -this is the " iTHING " - iPhone can not match the features of this baby, but still owing to Steve Jobs , this iPhone is surely to become the popular gadget among these guys

Mobile ,.....What am i running!!!!

When ever my mobile goes into my pocket (which I rarely do), I need to close all the running apps. I do this by manually checking the current running application [ long press of menu key]*.
I will be running all kind of application including browser, calendar, IM, yahoo…. And many times I forget what i have some apps running and I simply lock the keypad.Running application eat up a lot of battery power…this happens with me coz i cant keep track of all the apps i started 2-3 hrs ago…this shouldn't be happening.. after all i am using a smart phone. it should know what all application the user has started and if the user is not giving any input for a long time then it should be smart enough to close them [its a crazy idea though!!!]..,,symbian, for developers has given a every “Smart” approach in saving resources while developing application and its called cleanupstack.

Time out [Not in depth]
Cleanupstack is a way in which a developer can concentrate more on his coding rather worrying about the memory mishandling due to crash or abrupt closing of the application.

Nokia has finally given a break for smartphone freaks. In there next version of UI frame work s60 3rd edition FP1, they have this beautiful feature where in on the menu view there is a small icon(running) at the top right corner of folder which indicates that there is a application running from this folder [on the application itself]. ..Kudos NOKIA for this kinda feature. Unfortunately i still haven't upgraded to s60 3rd ed FP1 device !! All in all a useful feature packaged in a nice manner

Picture taken using RDA [N95]

*Note by the way i use Nokia 3250