A teaser video on Youtube revealed the nitty-gritty of
Nokia's next MeeGo based device, to be named as N9,
which will be the successor of Nokia's N900.

Nokia could soon
come out with
yet another
MeeGo device and
it may be named as N9. A purported video of the device was
uploaded on the Youtube. However,
the video was removed immediately
by Nokia claiming copyright issues.
Notably, the Finnish handset maker
had, during the Nokia 2011
Developer Forum earlier this year, announced that it would come out with another MeeGo based device soon. Built on the same hardware platform as the Nokia N97, the N9 will feature a slide out
Qwerty keypad and an angular placed screen along with an extended keyboard. It likely to have a display of 4 inch or more of 360 x 640 resolution with a capacitive
touch. The processor is expected to be in the 1GHz category and may feature a totally
revamped version of the MeeGo interface. The teaser video, which was accidentally put on YouTube, reveals that the N9 will come
armed with integrated Near Field Communication and Augmented Reality capabilities.
Social media will also be an integral part of the new User Interface. The teaser said that Nokia is ready with the device and it is just a matter of time before it
officially announces the device.

Leaked screenshots of the Symbian^3 Belle operating system firmware update, the one to
follow Symbian Anna , reveals that soft keys are finally being abandoned on the Nokia E7 hardware that it was loaded on.

In the picture above with the list icons, you can see the older soft-key style navigation
scheme on the bottom. The right image shows the transition to toolbar icons. Soft keys, which are two bottom keys of the device, was a popular feature of Symbian and
Windows Mobile as the platforms evolved from the PDA realm to the smartphone space. In
the early days, the keys mimicked the functions of two menu keys at the bottom of what
are known as dumb phones, or more elegantly referred to as feature phones. However,
those keys have since been viewed as antiquated, as they often pull up small text-based
menus that aren’t as finger-friendly for the touch experience found on more modern consumer operating systems like iOS and Android, and instead, hardware makers have
moved towards a navigation bar at the bottom, which switched over from text-based
menus to a touch-friendly GUI. The navigation bar could change and become dynamic
depending on the app, the screen or task at hand, and would is akin, for desktop OS users,
to the Ribbons UI on Office and Windows products today. For many, it ’s seen as more intuitive as users don’t have to dig through menus and the basic functions and features are all displayed in plain view. With the Symbian Anna update, also known as PR 2.0 release for Symbian^3, Nokia
refreshed the UI to give it better icons and a portrait-oriented full QWERTY keyboard.
Continuing on for Symbian Belle, also known as the PR 3.0 release, it ’s nice to see more refinements to Symbian’s UI to keep it competitive with iOS and Android. It’s just too bad, in my opinion, that these recent changes to the Symbian experience to modernize the Symbian operating system comes as Nokia is beginning its transition to the
Windows Phone 7 platform. Though Nokia has committed to releasing and selling 150
million Symbian smartphones to keep the ecosystem alive in the midst of the transition, it
would eventually become a Windows Phone 7 house. Despite its aging aesthetics and
usability in the current Symbian^3 pre-Anna build, Symbian offers a lot of features and the
Nokia N8 is the best in class camera phone on the market today. It comes pre-loaded with free Ovi Maps voice-guided turn-by-turn GPS navigation, a great messaging and emailing
app, and a stellar camera. There are also subtle features, such as a clock on the sleeping
screen, that serves to create a refined overall experience. despite those features, it had a lot
of drawbacks–constant random reboots and lag–and hopefully Anna and Belle will help to spur more interest in the Nokia N8 and E7 as they both offer excellent build quality and
amazing designs.

The Nokia E7 may be all about its 4-inch screen and QWERTY keyboard but powering all this fantastic
hardware is the Symbian^3 operating system.
Anyone buying a Nokia E7 in the next couple of
months will find the Symbian Anna OS already
installed but for now we 're looking at the Symbian^3 PR1.1. Read our Nokia E7 software
and interface review and find what lies in store. The Nokia E7 is an impressive device and if
you're really to put it through its paces then you need to get to grips with the Symbian^3
operating system. Sure, it still has a great deal of
the look and feel of the older Symbian S60 5th
Edition about it but for the most part it's smoother, loads quicker and generally has a far
more intuitive interface.

The addition of three separate Homescreens
means you can create different profiles for
different needs, such as work, social media, or
just plain old having fun. You simply swipe your
finger across the screen and you'll find it moving on to the next Homescreen. In Symbian Anna
you'll be able to preview the screen before changing to it but at the moment this isn't possible. If you don't want to swipe then hitting the bar at the foot of the screen switches screens
for you. Creating completely unique Homescreen is nice
and easy, simply press Options and choose Edit
Home Screen. We created our main page to have
the clock, diary and email options on it, while a
second is packed simply with all the main apps
we like to use. In all honesty, the third page is pretty blank at the moment and simply there
waiting to be filled. Getting up and running is incredibly easy. As
soon as you insert your SIM and fire up the Nokia
E7 you'll be able to import your Contacts. Email is also quick and easy to manage, thanks to the
onscreen Wizard. What 's more, you can even choose from all the usual culprits, not just Ovi Mail,
as Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and even lesser ones
such as Virgin Media and BT Internet are all
covered. The interface allows for a whole host of apps and
widgets to be loaded, from the obvious culprits
such as Twitter and Facebook to BBC iPlayer, as
well as a whole host of news feeds that offer
frequent updates. Once you move away from the Homescreens and
into the Applications and guts of the operating
system you 'll find that Symbian^3 still owes a great deal to its heritage. Yes, going that last mile
can be little frustrating as not all apps load and
run instantly but it's still fairly easy to get around. Having played with the Symbian Anna operating
system we know what changes are coming
down the line, so while the current Nokia E7
works well it 's worth bearing in mind that everything will change in the next few months. That said, we're really enjoying using the Nokia E7 as it brings together a great array of features
and the fact you can make it into the device you
what it to be makes it even more enjoyable to
use.

Change the mood setting on you S40 device and the
mood Agent will suggest you to which song you should
listen to.
Ovi store has added a new application,
known as Moodagent, especially for Nokia's
latest touch and type devices based on the
S40 platform. The application is a smart audio player that identifies different
types of music and suggests the users according to their moods.
Users do not need to tag music to any particular mood which is
done by this application automatically, but the user has to select
what kind of mood he is in on the application. Users are free to use this application to play selected track if they
do not want to use the mood song suggestion feature.

The Nokia E7 may be all about its 4-inch screen and QWERTY keyboard but powering all this fantastic
hardware is the Symbian^3 operating system.

More often we witness only the Android or iOS apps making headlines for numerous positive reasons. As a welcome change, the Symbian platform based eBuddy Mobile Messenger app has successfully surpassed 10 million downloads in Nokia's Ovi Store. According to a recent post on the eBuddy blog, users spend almost 2,000 years per month in messaging or sending over 2.5 billion messages from their Nokia handsets. The eBuddy Mobile Messenger app has effectively soared up in popularity amongst Nokia users these days. eBuddy is a cross-network mobile application that allows its users to seamlessly chat in single aggregated interface across IMs like Facebook Chat, Hyves, ICQ, MySpace, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and more for free. It also enables users to stay connected with their dear ones even while on the go. The eBuddy Messenger app is available for download across multiple platforms such as Symbian, iOS and Android totally free of charge.

More often we witness only the Android or iOS apps making headlines for numerous positive reasons. As a welcome change, the Symbian platform based eBuddy Mobile Messenger app has successfully surpassed 10 million downloads in Nokia's Ovi Store. According to a recent post on the eBuddy blog, users spend almost 2,000 years per month in messaging or sending over 2.5 billion messages from their Nokia handsets. The eBuddy Mobile Messenger app has effectively soared up in popularity amongst Nokia users these days.

IT'S official: Singapore had the third-highest smartphone penetration in the world last year,
based on findings from a global study released yesterday. And, contrary to popular ground sentiment, the accolade of top smartphone operating
system here went to Nokia's Symbian, followed closely by Apple's iOS for the iPhone. The study of 43 markets worldwide by market-research firm TNS showed that 72 per cent
of Singaporeans with cellphones used smartphones last year. This contrasted with the

We have to say from the outset that while
Microsoft and Nokia have penned an agreement
to make Windows Phone OS the platform of
choice on Nokia Windows Phone devices, it 's not been announced yet when the first devices will
officially ship. However, with Microsoft offering a
host of new features in the next major update
we thought it worth checking them out. Check out our Nokia Windows Phone roundup 1: Multitasking: This looks like being a big one, as it allows for the fast switching of applications, as
well as allowing for functions to run in the
background, such as file transfer and music
player. 2: Live Tiles: Live Agents will run in the background and deliver real-time updates, such
as Push Notifications and Deep Linking, which all
sounds very important. 3: Better phone integration: Microsoft is claiming this has been greatly improved, giving
developers greater flexibility to do more with
their apps via Live Tiles. 4: Better Camera functionality: Microsoft is allowing developers access to the camera stack,
which means Nokia will easily be able to add it 's camera top-tech without having to 5: Better Motion Sensor library: Developers will be able to develop apps and games that take into not
only the camera but also the gyroscopic and
compass, so we should see a host of augmented
reality games appearing. 6: Internet Explorer 9: This will deliver a faster and cleaner browsing experience than ever
before on Windows Phone OS. 7: HTML 5: This will allow for faster rendering of webpages and make life a whole lot smoother for
developers and end users alike. 8: Windows Phone Marketplace: Microsoft are looking to make changes with a dedicated games
Marketplace, better parental controls and even a
new beta distribution service. 9: Angry Birds: Is coming to Windows Phone and will be available at the Windows Phone
Marketplace beginning on May 25, 2011. 10: Skype: Another app that has been missing from the line-up will also be coming later this
year. By the time the first Nokia Windows Phone rolls
of the production line most of these will be fully
integrated into the OS. In the meantime let us
know what you think about the changes
Microsoft have planned for the operating system.

We have to say from the outset that while
Microsoft and Nokia have penned an agreement
to make Windows Phone OS the platform of
choice on Nokia Windows Phone devices, it 's not been announced yet when the first devices will
officially ship.

Nokia will add a third touch and type phone
to the current X3-02 and C3-01. According to a website called Hackintos, the device,
possibly called C2-06, is expected to be a
slider phone with a keypad as well as a
resistive touchscreen.

It is also expected to
support Dual SIM but no information is
available on whether it will be GSM only or CDMA as well. The keypad on the device also shows off the ability to type in Hindi. The operating on the device is expected to be the same as the X3-02
and the C3-01 i.e., Symbian S40. The rear of the device features a 2MP camera but doesn't
house a flash. Rumours on the Internet claim that the device lacks 3G as well as Wi-Fi but thankfully
supports Bluetooth. Based on information available so far, the device should launch in the
price bracket of Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 8,000 since other such devices are at the Rs. 8,000 mark.

Nokia whipped the covers off the gorgeous new Nokia X7 last week, giving the X Series a fresh new flagship and adding another new face to the
upper echelons of Nokia's Symbian^3 smartphone range. But how does it stack up
against the Nokia N8 or Nokia E7, for instance?
Here we look at the top 10 things you need to
know about the Nokia X7.
First, though, the basics. The Nokia X7 is primarily
a gaming device, which is why it carries the 'X' branding, while the fact that it carries a higher
number than any previous X Series handset
means it sits at the top of the range, above the
Nokia X6.
So what does it offer to back up its range-topping
billing? Here are the highlights:
Bold design: while the Nokia E7 and Nokia N8 share a similar design philosophy (despite being
significantly different in size), the Nokia X7 goes a
notably different route, boasting a far bolder
angular design well suited to its gaming
aspirations.
Stainless steel construction: we shouldn't be surprised by now, but the Nokia X7 ′s stainless steel chassis has a confidence-inspiring sturdiness
about it that should see it happily withstand its
fair share of knocks, as will the Gorilla glass
display.
Screen size: and speaking of which, that 4-inch screen is of a size and quality befitting the Nokia
X7′s top billing. It comfortably eclipses the Nokia N8′s 3.5-inch panel, and so is a more natural fit for gaming and watching movies, while it 's also an AMOLED screen, so you lose nothing when it
comes to quality. 8-megapixel camera: the Nokia X7 may be mainly about consuming media, but it's no slouch when it comes to creating it either. You get 8
megapixels of snap-happy shooting power, along
with the ability to shoot video clips at 720p. It 's not quite a match for the Nokia N8′s 12- megapixel sensor, but then again very little is.
Symbian Anna: Nokia's long-awaited update to Symbian^3 was unveiled alongside the Nokia X7
and its stablemate the Nokia E6, and both will
ship with the latest OS already on board. Other
Symbian^3 smartphones, such as the Nokia N8
and Nokia E7, aren't being neglected either, but they'll have to be updated to the latest OS.
Top typing: unlike the similarly sized Nokia E7, there's no slide-out QWERTY keyboard here, but thanks to the aforementioned Anna update to
Symbian, you do now get a virtual keyboard in
both landscape and portrait orientations, and the
size of that 4-inch screen makes typing as
painless as you could hope to expect.
Game on: that huge expanse of screen is just perfect to show off the latest high-quality games,
and the 'four-vented' design of the Nokia X7 makes for comfortable gaming when held in
landscape mode. Nokia even gets you started by
including Galaxy on Fire and Asphalt Five on
board as standard.
Speed: another vitally important component when it comes to gaming is speed, and the Nokia
X7 is more than up to the task thanks to the
combination of a 680MHz processor and the
reduced power demands and improved
performance of Symbian Anna.
Storage: the Nokia X7 is meant for media consumption, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense not giving you somewhere to store it all. Nokia
has shoehorned just 350MB of internal storage
onto the Nokia X7 to get you started, but you can
add up to 32GB more via the microSD card slot.
Battery: we get the feeling you 'll be using your Nokia X7 quite a lot, and it seems Nokia has the
same feeling, as it's kitted the X Series top-ender with a battery capable of delivering as much as
50 hours of music playback, 9.5 hours of talk time
and up to 450 hours in the unlikely event that
you just leave it on standby. So how do you reckon the Nokia X7 stands up to
its Symbian^3 compatriots in Nokia's smartphone portfolio? Does it deserve its billing as a gaming
superstar? Let us know in the Comments below!

Nokia launches more Symbian models Meanwhile, Nokia has unveiled two new Symbian models, after announcing earlier this year that Symbian had no
future, given the company's new plans to partner with Microsoft to develop Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

The business-oriented E6 and consumer X7 are scheduled to launch in the second quarter. Despite previously outlining a future built around Microsoft's WP7, Jo Harlow, the head of Nokia 's Smart Devices business, said "With these new products and more Symbian devices and user enhancements coming in the near future, we are confident we can keep existing Nokia smartphone customers engaged, as well as attract new first-time and
competitor smartphone users." The new phones incorporate the Symbian Anna update, which Nokia plans to also roll out for its existing Nokia N8, E7,
C7 and C6-01 models over "the coming months." The company said "this update offers a host of usability enhancements, including fresh, new icons, improved text input,
a faster internet browsing experience and a refreshed Ovi Maps application with improved search and new public
transport routes," and added that "Symbian Anna greatly enhances the user experience on Nokia smartphones and
makes the Qt business opportunity with Nokia even greater [for developers]."
Mobile market leader takes on iTunes
The company also touted in a separate press release new growth in its Ovi Store, describing an "approximate 200- million-strong Symbian consumer base has seen the Ovi Store catalogue grow to more than 40,000 apps, with about
1,000 added per week." Given the size of the Symbian installed base and Nokia's still very large market share of all mobile phones, it's surprising
that the platform hasn't even caught up to the 65,000 titles available for the iPad, let alone the 350,000 apps for iPhone.
And now, a warning
Nokia ended its press release with an unusually long notice that points out its "intention to form a strategic partnership
with Microsoft to combine complementary assets and expertise to form a global mobile ecosystem and to adopt
Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform," and notes a string of 37 "risks and uncertainties." These include "our ability to succeed in creating a competitive smartphone platform for high-quality differentiated
winning smartphones or in creating new sources of revenue through the proposed partnership with Microsoft," "our
ability to maintain the viability of our current Symbian smartphone platform during the transition to Windows Phone as
our primary smartphone platform," "our ability to build a competitive and profitable global ecosystem of sufficient scale,
attractiveness and value to all participants and to bring winning smartphones to the market in a timely manner, "our
ability to implement our strategies, particularly our new mobile product strategy," "unfavorable outcome of litigations,"

The new Nokia X7 has
been outed by Three in a
promotional video for the
network, and comes with a
good look at the
forthcoming Symbian UI improvements. The new Nokia X7 looks to
be a pretty decent handset
on specs alone, coming
with an 8MP camera with
dual LED flash, a large 4-inch Clear Black OLED screen and a
pretty nifty metallic chassis.

(especially for Nokia N8 users)
is the new Symbian UI shown off deals with a lot of the issues we
found in our N8 review. The homescreens now have a more dynamic scroll about
them, the widgets are overhauled and more interactive (and
of different sizes) and the internet browser is reportedly
much, much faster. We're also 'treated' to a portrait QWERTY keyboard... but it's
not like other manufacturers have managed to put that in for
over three years or anything, is it, Nokia? We're now looking forward to the Nokia event tomorrow
with a heightened level of fervour than before - will we get
a date when Nokia N8 owners will finally get the user
experience they should have had from the start

This is a public service announcement for those
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) watchers out there thinking
that next week there would be a London event
to reveal some juicy news about Symbian:
there is no actual, physical event taking place.

But there will be some news. You may have seen the invite posted on
various web sites (pictured left), inviting the
recipient to "discover what 's new with Symbian smartphones." Even we picked up the story about what Symbian news could be in store for Tuesday, April 12. We also took the time to get in touch with
Nokia to get more detail. It turns out this was
something of a blog storm in a teacup. Here is
what a Nokia spokesperson had to say: "The announcements next week are all online activities," he wrote mocoNews in an email. "The interest has been generated by a teaser campaign and the fact that here in the UK we
have arranged to meet a few of our analysts
on Tuesday. The wider media have combined
these items to 'create' a nonexistent London Launch." He noted that there will be some Symbian
announcements made that day at 10 AM
Finnish time (4 AM U.S. Eastern time) but not in
the form of a webcast or any other kind of big
presentation. We'll be sure to cover those. The amount of attention this non-event has
received speaks miles about the dangers of
blog-chatter, but perhaps even more about
how curious people are to see how Symbian
progresses as Nokia works to create new
Windows Phone 7 devices —and the ecosystem to handle them. HTC, by the way, will definitely be holding an
event in London on April 12.

:Nokia said it will
continue to sell smartphones using
its legacy Symbian software for a
long time after its first phones
using Microsoft's Windows go on
sale. Symbian is due to be replaced by
Microsoft's Windows Phone over
the coming two years under a plan announced in February, raising concerns Nokia
could drop Symbian phones -- which have lost
market share, but generate strong profits -- too
early. In a letter addressed to Nokia developers,
Purnima Kochikar, Vice President, Forum Nokia,
talks about future of Symbian, its strategy for
MeeGo and the Microsoft deal. Dear Nokia Developer, Much has been said in the last few weeks about
Nokia's announced strategy. I've heard from many of you with encouragement, concerns and
questions. Please do continue the dialog with me
and the Forum Nokia team. I want to take a moment to focus on what these
announcements mean to you, how Nokia plans to
support your development needs and how this
translates into opportunities today and in the
future. First, let's recap what it is we announced; the three main areas of our strategy: 1. Plans for a broad strategic partnership with
Microsoft on Windows Phone
2. Connecting the Next Billion
3. Future disruptive technologies What about Symbian? What about Qt? Understandably, these are the first questions that
come to mind. Although Windows Phone will
become our primary smartphone platform, we
will continue to deliver a great deal of value from
Symbian. We 're making investments that will help us to engage and attract existing and new
Symbian users and allow us to launch new
competitive smartphones. Over the past weeks we have been evaluating
our Symbian roadmap and now feel confident we
will have a strong portfolio of new products
during our transition period i.e. 2011 and 2012.
These devices will take advantage of the strong
integration of devices and services as well as our strength in areas such as imaging and location-
based services. They will also include
improvements in hardware performance such as
GHz+ processing capabilities and faster graphics
speeds. To further enhance the competitiveness of these
products we will deliver updates to the current
Symbian user experience. The first major update
will arrive in summer, delivering a new home
screen, new flexible widgets, new icons, a faster
browser, new Navbar and a fresh look and feel to Ovi Store and Ovi Maps, including integration of
social media services in Ovi Maps. You may have seen some of these updates in the
latest product we launched at CTIA Wireless this
year, the Nokia C7 Astound. Those plus the rest of
the enhancements will be delivered to all users
over the air in a simple update available from the
Home Screen, and Nokia Astound users will receive the remaining enhancements not already
in their device at the same time. I've been asked many times how long we will support Symbian and I'm sure for many of you it feels we have been avoiding the question. The
truth is, it is very difficult to provide a single
answer. We hope to bring devices based on
Windows Phone to market as quickly as possible,
but Windows Phone will not have all language
and all localisation capabilities from day one. In many markets, including markets where
Symbian is currently the lead smartphone
platform with significant market share such as
China, India, Russia and Turkey, we will continue
to make our Symbian portfolio as competitive as
possible while we work with Microsoft to introduce Windows Phone. For that reason
certain markets will play a more significant role in
selling the 150 million Symbian devices than
others and we will be selling devices long after
Windows Phone devices from Nokia have
already started to appear in other markets. That is why we cannot give you the date when Symbian
will no longer be supported. What I can promise you is that we will not just
abandon Symbian users or developers. As a very
minimum, we have a legal obligation, varying in
length between countries, to support users for a
period of time after the last product has been
sold. Our intention is that when users come to the end of the natural lifecycle of their Symbian
device they will make the change to a Nokia
Windows Phone device and so it would not be in
our interests to undermine their Nokia
smartphone experience. Operators have also
been very supportive in their commitment to help us continue to sell and support Symbian devices
while we make the transition to Windows Phone. We currently stand at 109 operators in 34
countries and no doubt they continue to
recognize the opportunities in a platform that has
great localization, differentiation and flexible
billing services, while we start to build great new
devices with Microsoft. Qt, the development platform for Symbian and
future MeeGo technology remains critically
important and Nokia is committed to investment
in Qt as the best toolset for those platforms and
we are focusing on future developments in part
by our plan to divest the commercial licensing business, used mainly by developers of
embedded and desktop applications beyond the
mobile market. Additionally we are readying app analytics, in-
app advertising, in-app purchasing, a new
browser and hardware enhancements. There are
a lot of new things for developers to take
advantage of in these soon-to-be-released APIs.
We are continuing to explore Qt for use in other strategic investment areas as well. So in short, there are some very exciting things
happening in Symbian and Qt, lots of new devices
and platform improvements and we believe
consumers will be downloading great developer
apps from these devices. All together, this means
your investment in Qt is a safe choice for skill competency, monetization opportunities and
brand awareness amongst our millions of users. The partnership announcement has many of you
wondering how Forum Nokia and Microsoft will
support you in the future. As we carefully plan
this with Microsoft we will be able to share more
information. However, we are listening to your
concerns and comments. Nokia and Microsoft share a view and commitment to make the
transition as smoothly as possible for developers. The second pillar of Nokia's strategy, 'Internet for the Next Billion' also highlights our increased focus on opportunities for developers, especially
Java developers. Nokia sells over one million
features phones a day; a staggering number by
any measure. Developers can already distribute
Java apps to approximately 600 million Series 40
devices. We intend to drive more innovation and
improvement in Series 40 developer engagement.
We are continuing to develop easy-to-use tools
and software developer kits to make it simple,
easier and more affordable for Java developers to
work with us. For example, there is free signing for Java apps; the new SDK for Touch and Type UI
is in the market now; plus we have plans for
increased proxy browsing capabilities on our
device and support for web apps. Consumers around the world are hungry for apps
on Nokia devices. The disruptive technologies area of our strategy
includes our work on MeeGo and Nokia Research
Center, Nokia's future looking, global labs. You will hear more from us on MeeGo in coming
months. Finally, there is still $10M up for grabs in the
Calling All Innovators contest. The deadline is
approaching March 31 so be sure to submit your
app. If the content of your app is applicable to
consumers in the US and Canada, you could get a
piece of the $10M in cash and prizes. Giving out these big checks and seeing your apps get
downloaded by millions of consumers is the best
part of my job! In the coming weeks and months, we will
continue to update you on our progress with
Symbian, Windows Phone and Series 40 and new
programs to assist you in building success in Ovi
Store. We are excited about working with you in
each of these areas. In the meantime, we'll look for your next great Qt or web app in Ovi Store!
Best regards,

Purnima Kochikar

Vice President,
Forum Nokia

Threatened by competitors gobbling up the market share in India, Nokia is planning to
aggressively launch 40 cell phone models — 12 of them smartphones — in 2011.

"We will be launching 40 models in 2011 of which at least 30% would be smartphones, " a Nokia executive close to the development told . It is learnt that Nokia is looking at launching entertainment as
well business smartphones in India. Globally, Nokia has been facing tough competition from the likes of Apple and Blackberry for
smartphones. In India too, IDC figures indicate a fall in Nokia's market share, though the company does not agree with these figures.
D Shivakumar, vice president and managing director of Nokia India, said things will hot up after
mid-April. "On an average Nokia launches about 40 phones in a year across all categories, " he said.
Nokia recently tied up with Microsoft and will launch a smart phone based on the Windows 7
platform within a year. It is expected that the phone will be launched simultaneously in India,
one of the biggest markets of the Finnish firm. Nokia that works on the Symbian platform, has
been finding Google's Android phones a tough nut to crack. In India — as all over the world — Apple's iPhone and Blackberry have increased their market share over the last two years in the smart
phone category, say industry experts.
Nokia would be launching more models (12) in the smart phone
category just to retain an upper hand. The price range is not known,
but the sheer number of models is likely to be greater than both the
major competitors put together for the current year.

The good:
The Nokia Astound boasts a sleek, premium design and affordable price tag. Call quality is good, and the phone's 8- megapixel camera takes great photos and video. The bad: The smartphone can be sluggish and the Symbian 3 operating system is still behind the curve in ease of use and functionality.
Specifications:
T-Mobile, GSM / WCDMA, 4.5 oz, 3.5 in
The bottom line:
The Nokia Astound is a beautifully
designed and affordable smartphone for T-Mobile, but there are other budget-friendly options available with better performance and that are easier to use

As promised, Nokia is making the latest version
of the Symbian platform source code available to
its platform development partners. The company long touted its intent to deliver the entirety of its open-source operating system
environment to the community.

And now nearly
all of the source code has been uploaded to collab.symbian.nokia.com, and the few remaining source files, tools, and documents will be
uploaded over the next few weeks, according to a post on the Forum Nokia site. Meanwhile, in a post on Nokia's Symbian Blog entitled "We are Open!," Petra Soderling, Nokia's
head of open source for Symbian smartphones,
said, "We are excited about the completion of the
transfer period, during which code delivery from
the Symbian Foundation has now been replaced
by an open and direct model from Nokia." Moreover, added Soderling: "As Nokia announced in February, our plan is for Windows Phone to be our primary smartphone strategy.
While Nokia and Microsoft are working on a
definitive agreement between the two
companies and we have begun working on
product collaboration, Nokia plans to ship at least
150 million Symbian smartphones and to continue deliver innovation and software
updates to the platform. To achieve all of this, we
need the collaboration with our platform
development partners and continue to value an
open way of working." Soderling also reiterated that Nokia will no longer refer to official releases as "Symbian 3" or "Symbian 4," but will deliver continuous
evolution of the platform to partners and
customers. "In line with this approach we are
not delivering software builds, but do offer build
tools through this website, and a SDK [Software
Development Kit] through Forum Nokia." In October 2010, Nokia decided to focus on Qt as
the sole application development framework for
the Symbian and MeeGo platforms. Nokia also
announced its intent to support HTML5 for
development of Web content and applications for
both Symbian and MeeGo platforms. "We have been working hard to turn most
Symbian Foundation era materials into the new
framework," Soderling said.

It's no secret that Nokia is expecting, hoping (and probably praying) that all of its Nokia smartphone users will become Windows
Phone users in the not-so-distant future.

But at least one market-research firm is counting on
this happening by 2015. International Data Corp. (IDC) made available
some of its latest predictions available in a
March 29 press release for its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. (Thanks to WinRumors.com for the pointer to the press release.) It's not too surprising that IDC is predicting that Android will remain the dominant
smartphone OS between now and 2015,
growing its current worldwide share from
39.5 percent to 45.4 percent. But IDC is
predicting that Microsoft's Windows Phone OS will come in at No. 2 by 2015, growing from
5.5 percent share this year to 20.9 percent.
Meanwhile, IDC claims that iOS will drop from
15.7 percent share, to 15.3 percent share in
2015.

So how is Windows Phone OS going to
catapult to No. 2 in four years? If you look at
IDC's chart, it will largely happen by picking up almost all the Symbian share, according to
IDC. IDC is predicting the 20.9 percent Symbian
share will be down to .2 percent by 2015. I 'm sure Microsoft is counting on getting a hefty
share boost from its $1 billion-plus investment in Nokia, but will the Softies manage to hold onto almost all the Symbian base, as Nokia
tries to wean them from Symbian? I 'd think, given some Nokia users' skepticism about the sanity of the deal, more than a few might go
Android or iOS. Four years is an eternity in the smartphone
business. Lots of unanticipated things could
(and will) happen between now and then.
Plus, as we've seen with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, two vendors ' market shares combined don't necessarily equal the total of their respective shares. Nonetheless, Nokia
has stated in recent financial filings that its
ultimate goal is to try to "retain and transition the installed base of approximately 200 million
Symbian owners to Nokia Windows Phone
smartphones over time." What's your take? Are the IDC analysts overly optimistic, in terms of Windows Phone 's potential gains from the Nokia deal? Or is the
Nokia deal Microsoft's guarantee of relevancy in the smartphone market? And for the record — I have no idea how anyone can predict (or even guess) what the
mobile market will look like four years from
now. Even the growing number patent lawsuits among all the different players alone could end up having a significant impact on
the players and shares by then (maybe). So
remember: Don't shoot the messenger here. I am not backing IDC's prediction

some said symbian hp dead , but
Nokia has accidentally spilled the evidence of working on yet another Symbian^3 based phone - Nokia T7-00.

Not really a tablet but yet another smartphone aimed a different segment and might come with different branding. Just spot the listing of Nokia T7-00 mobile phone via the OVI Publishing Tools. At this moment, all we can say is that the new T7-00 appears to be slotted somewhere between N8, E7 and upcomingX7. Nokia already has new smartphone series with following initials - N, X, C and E. Now looks like Finnish mobile phone maker will introduce new T- Series of smartphones. According to the reported OVI Publishing Tools listing, the new T7-00 will run Symbian^3 version of mobile OS. The smartphone is listed to have 360x640 screen resolution which is same in N8, X7, C7 and C6-01 handsets. So I presume it will come with 3.5-inch to 4-inch touchscreen display. Details about the said Nokia T7-00 are very less and no photos have been spotted online. Nokia has promised to introduce more handsets this year and hence we ll patiently wait for this new T-series handset.
so symbian isn't dead.

NOKIA C6 Looking from distance it seems like a black N97
but closely it`s possible to see the differences. The C6 creeps trying to run the Symbian
operating system that is increasingly overtaken
by Android and by the IOS. <!-- more -->
Open the box
It`s time to open the box and see what Nokia
offers. Besides the terminal we have the mobile
phone charger, headphones and a 2 GB card
memory already included. The Nokia C6 has a small but resistive 3.2 inch
screen and a full keyboard.
Performance
Allied to the low reactivity of the operating
system itself, there are times when we touch the
screen and we can`t be sure the instruction was
correctly perceived by the C6 and is being
processed or if simply we have to reload for
something to happen.

There is no stylus provided but it isn`t required
anyway. The tactile screen and the full QWERTY
keyboard are more than sufficient. Beside the keyboard that is hidden beneath the
screen, the C6 have six dedicated hard buttons
and a switch to quickly lock or unlock the
terminal. The usual red and green buttons with
the middle button for the menus can be found in
the bottom of the screen. On one side there is the volume control and a
button to "open" the camera. On the other side,
there`s a slot for the memory card. The 5 MP sensor does not produce the best
pictures ever seen on a smartphone but
nevertheless a good camera for less demanding
users who occasionally take some pictures.

Screen and sound
home screen can have widgets and is
customizable. However, we can only have a
panel with key shortcuts the competition already
has several panels for some time. I`m not sure if that`s intended to compensate for
the low sensitivity of the screen or not but you
can switch between widgets using the physical
keys. The speaker works fine and the sound is well
projected inside a room. It`s impossible to say the
same about the earphones provided as they
never performed well. If you want to use C6 as a portable music player
and fill the 2 GB memory card with music then it
is advisable to invest in some good headphones. During a phone call, both the microphone and
voice quality are average with no parasitic noise
to disturb communication. In the end the Nokia
C6 provides a crystal clear sound.

Technical Characteristics
Operating system: Symbian, S60 5.0; Frequency range: Quadband; Speed: HSDPA; Screen: resistive, 3.2"; Storage: 200 MB + 16GB microSD; Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, micro USB; A-GPS; Camera: 5MP; Dimension: 113.4x56x16,8 mm; Weight: 150g; Autonomy: 5h talking/400h standby.

If, like many, you only tend to fire up Internet
Explorer to download Firefox or Chrome, then
you may want to check out what Microsoft's
elves have been slaving over to put these
browser upstarts in their place.

howcasing IE9, Microsoft talked up its support
for HTML 5 and hardware acceleration which
sees the browser doing tasks previously the
domain of Adobe Flash, while offloading
graphical chores into graphics hardware. Interactivity and zippy graphics aside, IE9 also
sports a bevy of other lesser known features
such as "Pinned Sites" and what Microsoft calls
"One Box". But the million dollar question is
whether or not IE9 and it's new feature set
have the chops to take on Chrome and Firefox? Look and feel While Internet Explorer has long sported a user
interface that even its own mum would
struggle to love, IE9 signals a change in design
direction. The clutter has been kicked to the
curb as IE9's designers focus on less interface
and more on the web. This may sound like small beer but at the end of the day, as web
pages become increasingly information rich and
complex, less is the new more in the browser
interface game. From this perspective, IE9 seems to have moved
on from its awkward teen years into a more
mature early adulthood. The fugly menu bar is
gone and its navigation buttons and address
bar now dominate proceedings. Equally nice are
the small-yet-noticeable tweaks that add a hint of sophistication - such as the backwards and
forwards buttons changing colour to match the
of the site you're browsing. Add in the Aero
glass frame and translucent windows, and IE9
is a good match for Windows 7 or Vista. It
won't work on the aging XP operating system. New features Rather than taking the same tired old chassis
and adding different coloured upholstery,
racing stripes and a shiny set of wheels,
Microsoft seems to have gone to some effort to
add genuinely useful features to IE9. It may be one of IE9's more subtle features but
Pinned Sites quickly became an indispensible
part of my surfing repertoire. Thanks to Gmail
and several other sites, I live with browser
pages open 24/7 on the PCs scattered
throughout my home and work. As the cloud continues to grab a growing slice
of our productivity, being able to pin websites
to the Windows Taskbar makes a whole lot of
sense. Once you've dragged a site to the bar, it'll
behave like a completely separate application,
complete with notifications (e.g. new email etc). Some pinned sites also support jump lists
(which are shortcuts to site specific tasks when
you right click the pinned icon on the Windows
taskbar). It mightn't sound like much, but it
goes a helluva long way towards streamlining
how you interact with the web. Also absent is the multitude of distracting text
field boxes that plagued previous versions of
Internet Explorer. The address bar is still there
but now does double duty for entering search
terms. Tab trickery has also been given a spit
and polish with tabs now able to be snapped out from the browser and misbehaving tabs
able to be closed without killing the entire
application. Equally nice is the new Tab Page which shows
sites that you've visited. Last but by no means
least, Microsoft has finally heard the pleas of
many a geek and added an actual real to
goodness Download Manager so you can now
see what files have been downloaded and the progress of downloads as they happen. Performance IE9 may be brimming with usability
improvements, but power users have a near
insatiable need for speed, so has Microsoft
added a bigger donkey under IE9's hood? There's been a lot of talk about IE9's HTML5
support and hardware acceleration as well as a
new faster JavaScript engine, plus support for
fancy pants web technologies like CSS3 and
SVG2, but is IE9 really that much faster? Having spent the better part of a week with
IE9, my answer to this is a positive yes. After
having had several badly-behaved Firefox add-
ons bring it to its knees in the past, IE9's "Add-
on Performance Advisor" was a godsend. The first time I fired up IE9, I was greeted with
a pop-up asking if I'd like to speed up
browsing by disabling slower add-ons. The
resulting snappiness was a welcome addition. Perhaps the most noticeable performance boost
with IE9 during my testing wasn't browser
start up or page render times (although these
felt plenty fast), but how responsive it felt in
use. Hitting the stop button on earlier IE
versions felt like trying to stop a runaway bus, especially when lots of tabs were open. With
IE9 things felt more like taking a spin in a Lotus
Elise.

To IE9 or Not to IE9? Until recently IE was primarily seen by geeks in
the know as a vehicle for downloading Firefox
or Chrome, but the will IE9 see this change?
Thanks to a significantly improved interface
design, some genuinely useful features and
usability improvements (one of which is definitely speed) Internet Explorer 9 is primed
to give both Firefox and Chrome a real run for
their money.

According to the grapevine Nokia ’ s first MeeGo smartphone called the N9 seems to be revealed with its high quality pictures. The new pictures seem to be quite similar to the N9 handsets by
Nokia which was disposed few months ago.
Though Negri Electronics showed up few images
claiming them to be Nokia N9, but those images
any how doesn ’ t look like the images of Nokia N9, that we discovered off late. However the
detailed specifications of Nokia ’ s N9 handset yet to be disclosed. Hence for
now we can only give you few
features that we are expecting from
the device

According to the images
the handset has got a wide
touchscreen display with a full QWERTY keyboard that offers easy typing facility. It also boasts a front-
facing camera together with a flash-
enabled photo camera on the rear. The
N9 handset is also seen with few
functional keys on the left side of the QWERTY
keyboard. These photos were publicized more or less at the same time when latest images and videos of the Nokia C7 have also been revealed online. If you are too keen to buy Nokia ’ s N9 handset then you need to wait few months more
since Nokia is planning to launch this device
sometime later this year. Till then follow us to get
more detailed reviews on this.

Nokia will launch its first Windows Mobile phone in roughly 12 months from now, the
Finnish firm’ s India MD, D Shivakumar said. Shivakumar also defended the deal with PC
operating system maker pointing to Microsoft ’ s strengths in areas such as socia networking,
search and other software. In a regulatory filing in the US on Friday, Nokia
had said that it expected most of its smartphones
to migrate to the Windows Mobile platform only
in two years, setting off speculation that it will
take two years to implement the strategy. Nokia and Microsoft had announced a deal last
month under which Nokia promised to build
smartphones only on Windows platform, and to
abandon other platforms like Android and
Symbian.


According to Canalys, a global IT market research
firm, the share of Windows in total smarphone
sales had plummeted to just 3% during the last
quarter of 2010 despite having been present on
more than half of the smartphones in the early
2000s. In comparison, Symbian, which is being discarded by Nokia, had a marketshare of 31%. Critics and consumers dismissed the last major
version of Windows Mobile, called Windows
Mobile 6, as being clunky and resource-hungry,
though they have been kinder on the new
version -- Windows Mobile 7, unveiled earlier this
year. Shivakumar said Nokia ’ s bet is on the new version and its is much better than the earlier
ones. “ We took the decision after looking at that operating system [Windows Mobile 7]. It ’ s a good operating system, ” he said, when asked about abandoning a popular product for a less
popular one. Nokia, which has around 35-40% of India ’ s cellphone market, is estimated to be maintaining
its share in the smarphone market as well,
despite teething troubles in bringing new models
to market. The Finnish firm has been caught in a
semi-paralysis for the last 2 years as rivals such
as Samsung and LG raced ahead by introducing tens of new models in the smartphone category. The flounder also cost Nokia ’ s four-year-old CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo his job late last year, and
brought Stephen Elop, then head of Microsoft’ s business division to Nokia ’ s head. Shivakumar said the alliance between Nokia and
Microsoft will give the latter a second shot at the
mobile market, thanks to Nokia ’ s 33% global marketshare. “ Microsoft has been looking for a strong hardware partner, but they have been on phones
[platforms] which has not given them that
strength. With Nokia, suddenly the scales are
huge. “ So, for the first time in many a markets, people will get used to a Windows Mobile phone thanks
to the Nokia tie-up, ” he pointed out. For Nokia, the deal will help the company give a
quiet burial to the ailing Symbian operating
system while leveraging Microsoft ’ s influence as a shareholder at Facebook to bring nifty features
to its future smartphones. “ Its [new] operating system has links to it [Facebook].. It has a range of services which
complement Nokia services -- they have Bing
[search], Zune [music] and games,” the India MD said. Meanwhile, Nokia will launch around 40-50
new phone models in 2011, including around 20
smartphones built on Symbian, he added. He also claimed that the Rs 23,000 ‘ N8’ trebled the Indian smartphone market since its launch six
months ago. Around 6 million out of the 155
million phones sold in India last year are
expected to have been ‘ smart’ , according to research firm IDC India. They are expected to hit
39 million units by 2014, according to Canalys.

The morning after Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake to hit
the island nation in recorded history and the
tsunami it unleashed -- and even as the earth
continued to twitch with aftershocks -- the
disaster's massive impact was only beginning to
be revealed.


The 8.9-magnitude temblor, which was centered
near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of
people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of
water that swept across rice fields, engulfed
entire towns, dragged houses onto highways,
and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi
Prefecture on Japan's east coast.

The epicenter of Friday's main quake
was located off Miyagi Prefecture, about
230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of
Tokyo, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Also in Miyagi, officials reported that a
train had derailed and authorities had
lost contact with four trains in coastal
areas, Kyodo reported, citing the East
Japan Railway Company. Six million households, more than 10%
of the total in Japan, were without electricity, said Japan's ambassador to the United
States, Ichiro Fujisaki. In Tokyo, rail service was suspended overnight,
elevated highways were shut early Saturday and
surface streets remained jammed as commuters --
thousands of whom had spent the night in
shelters -- tried to get to their homes in outlying
areas. Video aired by Japanese broadcaster NHK
showed extensive fires in Miyagi and in the port
city of Hakodate, in the southern part of
Hokkaido island in northern Japan. An oil refinery
was burning in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo,
according to NHK. And Kyodo News said fires could be seen in extensive areas of Kesennuma in
Miyagi. Aerial views of Kesennuma showed plumes of
white smoke emanating from the center of the
city and large, black areas the flames had already
traversed. In the city of Minamisoma in Fukushima
Prefecture, all that was left of many structures
were their foundations. Only concrete and steel
buildings appeared to have withstood the wash.
No people were visible in the streets of the town,
whose population on Friday had been 70,000. And a dam in Fukushima Prefecture failed,
washing away homes, Kyodo reported. There
was no immediate word of casualties, but the
Defense Ministry said 1,800 homes were
destroyed. The National Weather Service sent a warning to
50 countries and territories it said could be
affected by the tsunami. Scores of aftershocks jarred the country
Saturday, punctuated by a pair of strong
earthquakes in the early morning, including one
with a magnitude of 7.1 and another with a
magnitude of 6.8. A leak occurred in an atomic power plant in
northeast Japan, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear
agency said Saturday. Cooling equipment stopped
working when generators failed in the quake,
and the temperature inside the plant in the
Fukushima prefecture had risen; officials lowered the pressure inside the plant hangar by venting
it, said spokesman Kazuo Kodama. But high levels of radiation led officials to
suspend the release, NHK said. Alternative plans
were being evaluated, the broadcaster said. Citing Japan's nuclear safety agency, Kyodo said
radiation levels were 1,000 times above normal
in the the control room of the facility's reactor. An evacuation order was extended to people
who live within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of the
plant, named Fukushima Daiichi, about 160 miles
(260 kilometers) north of Tokyo. The agency said the radiation amount posed no
immediate threat to the health of nearby
residents, Kyodo reported. Cooling problems also appeared to have affected
to another of the Tokyo Electric Power
Company's nuclear facilities. Kyodo reported the power company alerted
authorities that the cooling system at three units
of another plant in the same prefecture. That
prompted Japanese authorities to add that plant
to its emergency list, along with the another
plant, Kyodo said. Prime Minister Kan inspected the plant and the
rest of the affected region from a helicopter. The government ordered the evacuation of
residents nearest the plant as efforts to keep it
cool after it was shut were initially hampered. Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported
Saturday that the death toll is more than 900,
with about 700 others reported missing. Earlier
Saturday the nation's Kyodo News News Agency,
citing police, reported that the death toll was 433,
with at least 784 missing. The official death toll is likely to rise as authorities
continue rescue and relief efforts in the worst-hit
areas. Kyodo predicted the death toll would
surpass 1,000.

The first update for Windows Phone 7 is already
out but the first one with merit - well, with copy
and paste anyway - is coming this month
(though not as fast as expected). Hopefully,
Microsoft has learned from their mistake with the
first one and this one will go smoother.


The first update was supposed to improve the update process itself to make the phones ready
for the future updates. That didn't go very smoothly as Samsung Windows Phone 7 owners
will attest, but the issue was fixed and WP7 phones should be all ready to get one of those
small but "I can't believe it doesn't have it"
features. We're talking about copy and paste - we've seen
it on video and there's a new video out too. The update is also expected to speed up performance
of apps and revamp the Marketplace. The update was officially confirmed for March
and Microsoft France's public relations blog says
the update will come in the second half of March
(instead of the first half as originally planned).
Either way, you'll receive a notification when it's
available. Microsoft has promised a lot more for Windows Phone 7 - Internet Explorer 9 mobile browser,
Twitter integration, cloud support for Office and
of course multitasking. These features should
come later this year, bringing Windows Phone 7
up to speed with the competing OSes before the
WP7-running Nokias come out.

jennifer Lopez fans in India (are there any?) now
have a reason to rejoice. The official first track of
her much talked about album – ‘ Love ?’ will be made available exclusively on Nokia ’ s Ovi store until March 9th, 2011.

The digital version of the song, ‘ On the floor’ features the American rapper, Pitbull. Apart from
this track, her new album ‘ Love ?’ will combine R&B, pop music and hip hop songs for a mixture of
club-ready singles as well as slower mid-tempo
songs and is tentatively scheduled for release in
March 2011

The Justin Bieber fever seems to have spread across the globe as the teen sensation has
become the most downloaded artiste across Asia,
Europe and Latin America.


According to Nokia's Ovi Music, Bieber has
rocketed up 52 places in the January 2011
downloads chart to 26th place, beating biggies
like Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Ke$ha and Akon. Ahead of his debut global "My World" tour, which
kicks off March 4 in the Britain, he has his
popularity has seen a 350 percent increase in
music downloads since January of last year. According to a press statement, India is the global
hotspot for 'Bieber fever', accounting for 28
percent, followed by China with 16 percent,
Finland with 13 percent and Britain with nine
percent. His most downloaded song is "Baby", followed by
"One Time" and "Somebody to Love**".

Despite the shift towards Windows Phone 7,
Nokia will still ship a MeeGo device this year. It's
going to be the successor to the Nokia N900 and
will be called the N950. We don't have a photo of
the device yet, but Nokia gave reassurances that
they are committed to MeeGo, Symbian, Qt and S40 too.

At Nokia's Developer Day, Nokia's CTO Rich Green
gave an extensive talk about the future of
current Nokia platforms, MeeGo included. He said
that they're working hard on the N950 and have
come up with some "very elegant" hardware and
interesting UI. That's all we have on the Nokia N950 - the Nokia
N9 (which was rumored as the coming MeeGo
device) might have been canceled and Nokia showed absolutely no new devices at the MWC.