Hasta La Gadget!

As Nokia comes up on Capital Markets Day next Friday — an event where the company has historically unveiled interesting things and launched important initiatives — rumors are once again swirling that they’re going to be announcing a major platform shift by way of a competitor. Both Android and Windows Mobile have come up in the past on multiple occasions, owing in no small part to the fact that Nokia’s had an outward appearance of spinning its platform wheels on the backs of Symbian and Maemo for far, far too long, but so far, nothing’s materialized. This time around, it’s said that Microsoft will be the partner announced on the 11th — and though Nokia’s uptake of Windows Phone 7 would be the obvious strategic shift, it’s important to note that these companies have actually partnered before with pretty trivial consequences for the market; it’s entirely possible they could be ramping up to do that again, sharing apps and services between Windows Phone 7 and Symbian / MeeGo. We doubt it, but it’s within the realm of reason.

But turning our attention back to the major platform shift, there are a couple factors that add a little more credibility to the rumor this time. First off, the elephant in the room: recently-appointed CEO Stephen Elop comes from Microsoft on good terms and has clearly been given marching orders to take Nokia in a new, more profitable direction; the Symbian Foundation’s gutting happened on Elop’s watch, for example, and he just hinted a few days ago that joining an existing ecosystem could make sense. More importantly, though, we’ve got a trusted source of our own who’s now saying that the tide has turned and this appears to be happening at Capital Markets Day — and that one of Nokia’s existing platforms will be dropped as a direct result. It’s hard to pick which one that’d be: Symbian, though terribly out-of-date, is still wildly popular in Europe and emerging markets, while MeeGo is technically promising but has yet to make any impact in the market whatsoever. On the flipside, noted Microsoft pundit Mary Jo Foley doesn’t put a lot of stock in this latest round of rumors.

So, here’s the question: can Nokia become another Samsung, LG, or HTC, betting its hopes and dreams on its chops as a hardware manufacturer alone? Historically, Nokia has been defined as much (if not more) by its platforms than by its hardware, which lacks Samsung’s capability for end-to-end in-house sourcing. Regardless of what happens next Friday, this should all make for a very interesting MWC indeed.

Nokia, Microsoft announcing partnership next week, possibly involving Windows Phone 7? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What we once knew as Symbian^3 was simplified into “just Symbian” a few months back, ostensibly to make updates faster and easier for Nokia to execute. Well, huzzah huzzah, here’s your first update. Version 1.1 of the new Symbian enhances communications by allowing you to accept meeting requests straight from an email and also integrating maps so that you may view the location as well. Besides that, N8 users get killer new features in Quick Office 6.4 like zooming in and out of Word documents along with three “high quality” games preloaded on new devices (which were already freely available in the Ovi Store). Excuse our overwhelming sense of disenfranchisement, but where the hell is our portrait QWERTY keyboard, split-screen text input, or those much-needed browser improvements? In the rubbish bin next to Symbian^4?

Nokia releases Symbian update for N8, C7 and C6-01, it’s not the one you’ve been waiting for originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 06:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last we heard, Nokia’s bike-powered cellphone charger was set to roll out worldwide by the end of 2010 for about €15 — now the company’s peddling it for €30 to European velocipede enthusiasts. (Sure, it’s twice as expensive as we anticipated, but it’s a huge step up from this thing.) The kit, intended primarily for developing markets, comes with a Nokia charger, phone holder, and bottle dynamo: the thing that spins your pedal pushing into cellphone juice. Aside from price and availability, Nokia seems to have followed through on the rest of its promises — it sports a 2-mm charger interface and provides 28 minutes of talk time for every 10 minutes spent riding between 6kph (4mph) and 50kph (31mph). European riders can pick up the charger kit from Nokia’s online store, while the rest of us just keep spinning our wheels.

Nokia’s €15 bicycle cellphone charger, now €30 in Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We love us some corporate intrigue, and there’s some intrigue of the highest order coming out of Finland today: local rag Kauppalehti claims that Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila had wanted the outspoken Anssi Vanjoki to step up, but was instead forced to endorse Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo’s successor to lead the embattled company by a team of American investors who demanded a CEO from the left side of the Atlantic. How “forced,” exactly? Ollila was allegedly in line to be ousted if he didn’t throw his weight behind Elop, which — as IntoMobile points out — is a bit odd considering that Ollila himself is leaving next year. All told, something seems fishy here; it’s possible that Ollila is simply trying to save face with Finns (and / or Vanjoki himself) as he prepares to leave Nokia… or it’s possible that hordes of vicious Americans with skin in the game collectively tightened the vice grips. Either way, Elop seems to be cleaning house in light of the Symbian move, so it’ll be interesting to see whether he can steer the ship back on course here in 2011.

Update: We’ve just received a statement from a Nokia spokesperson that basically calls the story a total fabrication:

“The story is totally unfounded speculation. There were three candidates for Nokia CEO position in the final selection and Stephen was chosen on merit without any external interference. We are very disappointed that this story was published just prior to the financial results.”

So there you have it — three candidates, Elop won, so says Nokia.

Nokia chairman wanted Vanjoki for CEO, American investors forced him to pick Elop? (update: Nokia says it’s false) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 11:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Terminal Mode is something of a standard for smartphone connectivity with in-car systems, but as of now Nokia is the only one really diving in head first with the stuff, and Renesas is jumping right in after it. At the International Automotive Electronics Technology Expo the company showed off its Terminal Mode implementation, running on a Linux and ARM Cortex-powered SoC. As you can see in the video below it replicates the phone’s interface exactly, which is something of a problem at this point. With any luck future Terminal Mode implementations will ditch the phoney UI and go with something a little more driver-friendly.

Continue reading Renesas shows off Terminal Mode smartphone integration on ARM Cortex (video)

Renesas shows off Terminal Mode smartphone integration on ARM Cortex (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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