According to news.com.com (*koff koff horrible url*) the iPhone is going to be announced on the first day of WWDC.

Cool.

This means that Nokia (and the other usual suspects - Moto, SE, Samsung, etc.) still have more than 2 months left. For Nokia, by their usual standards, this means that if they are going to have a direct iPhone competitor (touchscreen etc.) it has to be announced within the next couple of days.

We don't think the announced yesterday Nokia 5700 (pictured above) is it, although we do admit to liking some of the new styling cues.

Quick! Touchscreen device with symbian, multi-touch (like this!) tech, blackberry connect, 3.5mm plug and the music quality of at least an ipod shuffle, and I'm sold (if I were planning on getting an iPhone, and the multi-touch actually works such that our concerns about painful interfaces are misplaced).

[via Engadget]

Nokia Press release: "New York, NY - Nokia, a world leader in mobile communications, and EMI Music, one of the world's leading music companies, have announced a marketing and content agreement in which EMI artists, beginning with Capitol Music Group artists Lily Allen and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, will be featured in Nokia's Flagship Store locations worldwide, as well as Nokia's Experience Centers, theater locations and certain Nokia music-related websites across North America. EMI will be the exclusive major label provider of music content for the retail program, and new content from its artists will be added and featured every 60 days."

I don't know why the "Ring Nokia" chap thinks DRM won't be involved in the deal - most current Nokia devices are compliant with the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) 2.0 DRM standard, and while EMI has flirted with the distribution of DRM-free music, I don't see anything in the press release which suggests that the content provided won't be locked down.

Who knows.

On a brighter note, lets hope that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. With the iPhone approaching, it would be a really good idea for Nokia to have an answer to the iTunes Music Store (operators have been trying their darndest) and OTA downloads would be useful- although to be honest, given the Zune's current lack of the feature it's entirely unclear if even the iPhone will sport this functionality.

Bleah. We were wrong, and it does appear that all Ferrari and Vertu had to announce was a new phone cover - the Vertu Ascent Ferrari 1947 Limited Edition. Of course we're basing this on the information which we received.

That information is basically identical to the information chronicled over at Darla Mack's blog, so I shan't belabor the point.

It's interesting that Vertu's own website (as of the date and time of this article) has not yet been updated with the official press release. Having said all that, since it's a Vertu Ascent, we'd expect the specifications to be identical to existing Vertu Ascents - which basically means that if you want a basic phone it should serve you well.

Pity.

We would post pictures, but as all existing pictures appear to be from the same source, and aren't of the best quality (although we're not entirely sure why, since EXIF data shows that the camera involved was a Nikon D100, which is old, but is still based on a sensor very similar to current DSLRS) we shan't bother for the moment. :D

[source: little bird! Hooray for little bird! :D]

A little birdie has told us that Vertu and Ferrari will be launching some oh-so-new thing in Italy tomorrow.

Ferrari hasn't been a laggard in promoting it's brand across product lines - Acer's Ferarri laptop was one of the first automobile manufacturer-branded laptops around, and Vertu has released products which include trade marks they presumably do not own (e.g. the "Racetrack Legends" Limited Editions).

We'll keep you updated - it's probably just (another) new phone, just co-branded with Ferarri, but we hope for something really NEW - like a Vertu which has Symbian inside ;) Note that the little birdie said nothing about that.

[Image credit: Webshots! - A Ferrari F430 in (partial) Vertu livery]

So Apple's iPhone is here.

While official specs aren't out yet, and apple hasn't officially released any images of the phones other than full frontal shots, Arstechnica and engadget have enough between them that you generally know what to expect.

But even with a nice big (480*320) 3.5" touchscreen, 8GB of memory, sound quality which should be better than the N80's and a nice exterior, it still falls short of the N95 in certain ways - the two most important being dedicated keys and 3G.

The reason for this omission of dedicated keys is pretty obvious - the iPhone can't, in this day of uber-thin/small phones, be monstrous in size. Since a large screen was deemed to be important (and it is excellent marketing material) the device had to be thin (and it is, at 11.6mm) and so there's simply no space. This means that all keys must be "soft" keys - press bits of the touchscreen to get it. I don't know if you've used a touchscreen for this before, but it really sucks. Really. Really really. Unless Apple has used some sort of better touchscreen which can actually detect "button-presses" with at least 99.9% efficiency, I know i'm going to get frustrated using the iPhone as a the phone (sms).

The lack of 3G (UTMS or EV-DO) might also be related to "thinness". We would like to hope that it's omission was due to the fact that the US telephone market is engaged in something akin to a VHS/betamax war, and that handsets intended for the rest of the world would include it, but surely that would have been announced, especially since this is (very unusually for Apple) not an "availability" release, but rather a pre-announcement of the Nokia variety (i.e. not available now but hey - we're working on it). Perhaps that was because they knew that once the device was sent in for FCC approval, it would be plastered everywhere (example) In any case, the lack of 3G means that video calling (and conferencing!) is not part of the package. The lack of video conference ability is strange, as this would have been a really interesting iChat device otherwise. Also, surfing on EDGE is possible, but definitely comparatively painful.

Apart from that, there are a few other, more minor features, which the iPhone lacks. It doens't have the N95's GPS, and it's not a symbian device. These are probably not as important to the iPhone's target demographic, but are still interesting points to note.

I suspect that in the end all the above doesn't really matter in the medium term - the iPhone is not going to be a failure (too much market expectation), and Apple can always release a device with another form factor/functionality. But in the short term, I'm doubt that the iPhone will sway me from purchasing the N95 - or perhaps i'm not in it's target demographic...

In any case, rest assured that my comments in "Why you want to buy the N80" remain as accurate as they were on the day I wrote them. The competitive market has undergone a somewhat radical change, however - the range of products is diversifying rapidly, with phones becoming much slimmer (e.g. Samsung's Ultra series) and new market niches being created (e.g. Motorola's Fone, which is a -great- idea).

Even the niche which the N80 is in (Smartphone with no touchscreen) is becoming croweded, what with the availability far more models from Dopod, and a new windows mobile 6.0. But the N80 is still a pretty good buy, as it has become one of the most affordable choices with that featureset.

But it isn't significantly -better- than the competition any longer, and indeed Nokia must produce a "better" handset for upgraders - so what does Nokia have as a response? Why - the Nokia N95! It seems to be really really good - something which is a worthy upgrade in terms of features - which is pretty amazing given the featureset of the N80. The N95 adds GPS, a 5MP autofocus camera (marked with the Carl Zeiss trademark, in case that interests you) along with a substantially larger screen (2.6" vs. 2.1"), while maintaining the smorsmagord (sp) of features already in the N80 (WiFi, Symbian, memory expansion slot). It's also probably going to be physically prettier, although that's hard to say without access to an actual object (*nudge*hint*).

However, there are certain "soft" features which could have well been included in the N80 but were not, and that is the subject of discussion today. What does the N80 do badly, in spite of itself, and what should the N95 include? Here is my list of the most important improvements which will nevertheless never (well. are less likely to) appear in a feature list:

Interface speed - This is much better than the older symbian phones, it's probably marginally more responsive than the 6630/N70, but not close to the newer Nokia Series 40 phones (e.g. 6280) and I think this will actually be improved as the N95 is supposed to include a faster processor. Hopefully there won't need to be too much of a sacrifice in terms of battery life - being able to use the phone for at least a day without recharging is probably the test.

Audio - The audio output is not ideal, because of several things:
1. There is a very subtle background hiss when attached to sensitive headphones when playing music, and there's a very obvious hiss when changing between tracks whatever headphones are in use. I would also say that the included headphones aren't very good, but I suppose asking for that might actually result in a significant price increase. (and I don't have a personal interest in the matter, as I use either Etymotic ER4p's or UE 5 Pro's. :p)

This is also true for the N73, but is hopefully (I don't know) not an issue for the N91. This hiss is correctable - just use a resistor - for example, the one included with UE5's. Nokia would be able to do it better by adding something like that within the circuitry of the phone - if a resistor is added, the only thing which needs to be increased is the amplification ability.

2. The audio quality itself is not so hot. I suppose that this would be expected in a "multifunction" device, but it was a little disconcerting to note that the N80 sounds worse than my old 3G ipod, which is pretty (5? years) old.

3. Music player interface - please please please either use the space in the music player to display the album art, or resign the music player interface such that there's no obvious space. Even better, provide both.

The music player interface, apart from this, is potentially the best of
-ALL- portable mp3 players on the market, because ipod wheel scrolling (and the U10's d-click) lose as compared to being able to type the name of the song you want (assuming you have at least 2GB of songs). The player also lists what's coming up next, which is a sweet touch. The other thing which might be interesting to add is some easy interface to select the upcoming songs - the best implementation of this I've seen is the "party playlist' feature in iTunes.

The N95 makes it even better with dedicated start/stop/forward/backward buttons.

4. Jack sensing - please at least make it an option for the music to stop playing when headphones are removed or the adaptor is removed. It's something which the phone does detect in any case.

Apps/phone software - the apps and the integral operating system that the phone shipped with have also improved, but several things could change for the better:

1. Calculator - Work out a deal with mtvoid, pretty please, and include Calcium as part of the package. It's an excellent calculator.

2. WiFi access - the current interface sucks. Really. It's not actually difficult to create creating access point profiles - but finding out how to do it is really tough. This is why you have usability specialists right? Make profiles creatable more easily! Bonus points if an easy way to authenticate with "free" Wifi hotspots which require you to access a webpage to enter information is implemented.

3. application stability - I get software (including snake) killing themselves sometimes when messages come in or the phone rings. This really shouldn't happen. I also can't zoom more than 50% in the gallery without getting an "out of memory" message. Messages like that are also not uncommon when using the browser.

4. Calendar - please include tasks categorization.

5. Clock - support for NTP servers please! Given the "connectedness" of the phone, this should be included.

6. USB transfer - I bet you didn't know (unless you own an N80) that it's only USB 2.0 in terms of conformance to that specification - transfer speeds of the N80 are limited to USB 1 speeds (i.e. super slow.) I hope that the N95 actually supports USB 2.0 in terms of it's higher transfer speed. Note that this is not deceptive marketing or anything like that - for some reason the USB-standards body said this is kosher.

--

I think that this list of items actually demonstrates that Nokia did pretty well with the N80. Hopefully the N95 will also be basically all that is promised... although for my audio "woes" I might be best served by just going to get a new ipod...

Futuremark very kindly let us know that they're currently running a comic strip competition, in conjunction with Alienware.

The prize is a pretty sweet notebook - with a 17" screen and powered by an Intel Core 2 processor (specific processor is not stated) together with an AMD Mobility Radeon X1800. Intel and AMD are working together! (*I keeeeeddd.*) I would love to have one to play WoW on. :D

Anyhow, the contest itself is pretty fun - you basically draw a mini comic strip (on anything) and if it's judged to be the "best/funniest" - then you win! [Strangely - only one entry per person, and not so strangely - you must be in the US/Canada/EU.] Unfortunately, like most contests of this sort, all rights in the contest entries accrue to Futuremark - and a little more unusually, even moral rights (e.g. the right to be identified as the author of the comic) are possibly assigned to Futuremark.

I don't quite know if I agree with this. While the practice is certainly widespread (check it out the terms and conditions the next time you enter any contest which involves you creating copyrightable work), and indeed might make the entire exercise commercially feasible (e.g. free sources of photos!), perhaps taking such a harsh approach isn't the best way. Taken to an extreme, the transfer of your rights means that you can't even display the comic you drew for the contest, because you no longer own the copyright. It's possible to argue that the copyrights were procured for a fee, and indeed if the person was actually compensated (i.e. was a contest winner) perhaps this would be true, but in this case ALL copyrights are assigned once the entry is submitted. Oh well. Just so long as the people drawing the comics are aware of this ;)

The other thing, which is not really as unusual, is that you provide personal information and "opt-in" to receive marketing. My friend, Wil Harris, wrote a little while back that Web 2.0 = loss of privacy. It's probably true, and the question is how much that really is worth. Having to reveal your information in a competition is probably less insidious - and Futuremark at least has a decent privacy policy. Just something else to take note of, generally...

[and I didn't post the previous story!~ must have left some setting changed accidentally. I'll leave it on though, just for fun..]

Tetraedge has just released "Return to Mysterious island" for Symbian s60 3rd Edition.

Return to Mysterious Island follows Mina, a strong young woman alone on a round-the-world sailing expedition. Caught in a tremendous storm, she becomes stranded on the shores of a wild and apparently uninhabited island - your quest for Survival begins!

Return to Mysterious Island Game Features: