Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia, who has been rolling out Windows Phone 8 smartphones for quite a while already (after all, technology does move along at a rather fast pace), has announced that they will no longer offer support for both Symbian and MeeGo operating systems from the end of this year onward. This should not come across as a surprise, especially when you consider how Intel themselves have stopped development for the MeeGo operating system a year and a half after announcing the birth of this alternative mobile operating system with Nokia. That announcement meant that Nokia alone was soldiering on with MeeGo for the past two years, so to hear that Nokia will finally stop support for both operating systems at the end of 2013 could be seen as a progressive move.

This does not mean that there will be no more apps available for download, as customers can still do so, while developers will not be shortchanged since they will be on the receiving end of revenue for published applications. However, if you are a developer, it would mean that you can no longer publish or update apps on the Ovi Store once the clock strikes midnight on January 1. Would you miss the demise of MeeGo and Symbian?

Nokia To Drop Symbian And MeeGo Support At End Of 2013 original content from Ubergizmo.

These days, you don’t even have to ring someone, listen to their spiel and wait for a beep when you can just use apps to send voice snippets. WhatsApp, which recently reached 300 million users, has made its existing experience even easier with a new feature that lets you record and send voice memos with one press of the mic icon. A WhatsApp spokesperson told Engadget that the company has “spent a lot of time refining [voice messaging] and made it really simple to use.”

As a testament to this, WhatsApp has now removed length limits for recorded messages and plays audio within the app instead of opening a media player. Playback will automatically switch from a handset’s speakers to its earpiece when the device is held to your ear, and the mic icon will turn blue when recipients have listened to spoken missives. With the new perks available on the mess of platforms WhatsApp calls home (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BB10 and Nokia Symbian / S40), we bet everyone with that chatty friend are shaking in their boots.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: AllThingsD

Source: Whatsapp

That moment we’d been expecting (and to some extent, dreading) has come: Nokia is near shipping its last Symbian smartphones. The company should deliver the final round of 808 PureViews sometime this summer, marking the effective end to an 11-year-old platform. Those still attached to the software will have to take comfort in support that will last until at least 2016. We’re not overly attached to Symbian — it never completely adjusted to the modern era — but it’s hard not to shed a tear for the OS that brought us the N95, E71 and other smartphone classics. Let’s just hope that the next round of Lumias can fill the hole in our hearts.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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Via: SlashGear

Source: Financial Times

We’ve known for a while that Nokia would eventually cease the production of Symbian-based devices in favor of concentrating on its Lumia lineup of Windows Phone devices, and according to The Financial Times, it looks like that end is nigh […]

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The last time we saw new members of the Asha family they eschewed the usual QWERTY keyboard, opting instead for a full touchscreen. The newly announced (and previously teased) Asha 210, however, returns to the more tactile input method, and brings a healthy splash of color (five different ones, to be precise) plus a dual-SIM option along for the ride. As before, social networks feature heavily, but the focus clearly remains on low-end and developing markets. We know Nokia can do budget (and do it well), but is a full keyboard, a design update, and a dedicated WhatsApp button (all costing $72 SIM-free, excluding taxes when it lands late Q2) enough to make it appeal to anyone beyond the entry-level social addicts? Nokia was kind enough to show us the devices first hand, so head on past the break to see if we thought so.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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