27 May 2012

My Nokia Blog

My Nokia Blog

Video: Razor Theme Effects v1 for Nokia Belle

Posted: 26 May 2012 05:21 PM PDT

Here’s a video of Nokia Belle with a custom firmware with some animations that are new to me. I’ve seen various custom firmwares with custom theme effects but I’ve not come across this one yet.

For the most part there are some nice improvements though other bits are a little ‘jarring’ and excessive. Animations have the following purposes:

1) Makes an action prettier

2) can hide loading times

3) can direct user to the next action

4) does not negatively affect performance

They shouldn’t really be placed haphazardly. They should be there with purpose and with good execution. Belle FP1 does a lot of this quite right. I think this is a lot calmer and tamer than other custom effects I’ve seen.

 

by 

Weekend Read: BBC iPlayer App for Lumia in coming weeks?

Posted: 26 May 2012 05:09 PM PDT

The Inquirer reports that an official BBC iPlayer app will appear for WP in the coming weeks. This was info from Nokia saying it will appear on Lumia. Whether it will appear on other WP is another thing. If BBC are bringing it because of Nokia’s effort then I don’t see a problem with it being another Lumia exclusive. There are tons of stuff that would never have appeared on WP without Nokia. But BBC may have its own policies about device restriction based on manufacturer (as opposed to OS).

 Nokia has now informed The Inquirer that the BBC iPlayer will be coming to Lumia owners in the coming weeks.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2179758/bbc-iplayer-coming-windows-phone-weeks

BBC iPlayer is a catchup service in the UK allowing Brits to watch either pre-recorded shows and even live ones. I loved watching it on my N900 until BBC iPlayer kept updating and flash on N900 didn’t keep up and that stopped working. It is somewhat working with Flash on N9 though it’s not always smooth or in sync. Oddly higher end Androids have a dedicated mobile flash site where BBC iPlayer runs quite smoothly. As for iPhone – I haven’t used BBC iPlayer on that.

On that note, that suggests there’s ways for BBC iPlayer to work without flash. This reminds me – my N97 had the BBC iPlayer app and it could download the video and then play it with the inbuilt media player. I don’t recall if it could also stream. I’m sure the flash-lite in the browser itself wasn’t up to it so it might have been through the media player.

Source: theinquirer via  wpcentral

Lumia 900 Available in Singapore Via SingTel (S$248)

Posted: 26 May 2012 04:03 PM PDT

Hot on the heels of the Lumia 900s launch in Finland Last night, Singapore’s carries “SingTel” announced the availability of the Lumia 900 through it starting today, priced at S$248 (193 USD) on contract; however if you prefer to go Solo you can also grab a L900 from the official Nokia store in the region; but it’ll cost you a bit more namely S$ 850 (663 USD)- but it is worth pointing out that the first 5 people to purchase the 900s through the Nokia store off contract also got a free Xbox thrown in… Damn every-bodies getting Xboxes except for me; turns out if I had ordered my laptop two weeks later I would have gotten a free Xbox with that as well, but oh well.

 

VIA

Rumors: Nokia Windows 8 Handsets to Have same N9/800/900 Form-Factor

Posted: 26 May 2012 01:03 PM PDT

So I missed out on some news in the past day or two cause of my super long flight (almost 13 hours- and that was with some lucky tailwind that sped us up!); but anyways here I am in Chicago (testing out the KB on my new laptop as we speak), anyways. The latest set of rumors to surface about the elusive Windows 8 comes from Australian site WPDownUnder who claim that Windows Phone 8 is being heavily tested in Australia.  More interesting for us Nokia fans is the fact that the WP 8 devices from Nokia are claimed to be carrying the same unique N9/Lumia 800&900 form factor of polycarbonate plus the rounded edges (Back at MWC the Lumia design team confirmed that they were quite proud of the design and wouldn’t be letting it go to waste anytime soon).

Our information suggests that the current Lumia 800/900 body styling will continue into a Windows Phone 8 range – with a preview unit apparently looking "almost identical" to a current Lumia device. Given the unique polycarbonate body design of both the 800/900, our money is on either a Lumia 800 device with Front Facing Camera or a Lumia 900 styled WP8 device launching later this year.

It is however possible that the “preview unit” is in-fact the same Lumia 800/900 body either with the same internals (same exact phone) or that the body is just acting as a temporary shell for the phone to avoid leaks or until the final design is complete (it’s not uncommon for OEMs to borrow designs to test software and internals to perfect the phone before actually placing it in the real look – Samsung did the same with the S3 I believe).

It’s also been rumored that the launch/preview of WP8 will be sometime in late June (20/21):

We certainly hope to hear some more whispers in the lead up to the first anticipated public disclosure by Microsoft on Windows Phone 8 at their June (20-21) Windows Phone Developer summit.

Which would fit in nicely with a September Nokia World Launch; hopefully that would give Nokia enough time to perfect the Hardware and Software allowing for quicker release of devices, it’s also worth noting that although the WP marketshare has been dominated by Nokia so far, however once WP8 is launched it won’t be so cut and dry; as it has been rumored and confirmed that some of the currently “Not-So-bigtime” WP OEMs (Namely LG and Samsung) are plannign on going all out with WP8 trying to stake a claim in this territory before it’s too late; of course this isn’t all bad as it would lead to increased market share for WP as well as better competition; but Nokia has got to stay on top and not get too over-confident (Expect a more detailed post about this topic sometime later).

VIA Source - Thanks for the tip KF

Lumiappaday #193: Feed Me Oil, demoed on the Nokia Lumia 800 XboxLive

Posted: 26 May 2012 06:12 AM PDT

 

If you liked the game ‘Enigmo’ you’re going to love Feed Me Oil. It’s a similar principle but still quite vastly different, very entertaining and very challenging.

The aim is to ‘feed’ the ground (which seems to be alive) with oil. Tapping on the broken pipe starts the oil flow and you have to reach the level they set.

However, the oil isn’t always directly above where it needs to be. You have a set of elements that can direct your flow of oil such as the beams and spinning ‘wheel’ that have to be positioned carefully, turning in the right direction and at the right pace. If you get stuck there are hints that will show where to place items. The less items you use, the more points you gain. This is an xbox live title that is excellently priced at £0.79!

Feed Me Oil is a top notch quality title that looks great, is addictive, challenging and super fun to play! Go try it out (free trial available)

#193) Feed Me Oil 

Price:  £0.79/$0.99

Link: http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/apps/5de64ff7-87ee-4095-ad12-085aaaa1b919

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cL-azs0Cvo&feature=youtu.be

Developer Blurb:

When hunger strikes, strike oil! Welcome to a weird and wonderful place where the land is literally alive — and it's starving! Your job is to get the oil from the broken pipe to the mouths of the strange creatures. It won't be easy though, as you'll need to use all sorts of fun tools, as well as your brains, to solve the puzzles.

AMAZING DESIGN
A huge variety of mind-bending levels will test your mental skills. Different ways to solve each puzzle for endless replayability.

A JOY TO PLAY
Intuitive controls that make the game a breeze to pick up. Incredibly slick and realistic physics create oil like you’ve never seen. Use fans, magnets, wind, and more to beat each level.

BEAUTIFUL
Unique, surreal art design that looks amazing. Stunning musical soundtrack that features jazz, emotive piano tracks, and more.

Rating:

Design: 10

Usability: 9

Font a little small when giving hints

Performance: 10 

Price: 10

 

MNB RG: Lumia takes Nokia back to #1 in Finland, (+WP 7.53% according to statcounter)

Posted: 26 May 2012 03:40 AM PDT

This was more of a tip but Janne had already summarised most of the main content. I’ve added some info on statcounter – very promising news indeed:
_____________________
According to IDC and as quoted in major Finnish financial press, Nokia is back to 41% in Q1 of Finland’s smartphone market, after dropping to as low as 31% last summer and from the first place… In Q1, Samsung sold 28% and Apple 21% and Nokia was again #1. In this article Finnish operators are praising Nokia and saying the Lumia sales are not only coming from Symbian, but from others as well. They expect Lumia to continue eat into the competition. Recently at Nokia AGM, Elop reported that Nokia had also regained the #1 position in Finland in sales value thanks to Lumia, after loosing it to competition last year.
The article is titled “Finland found Nokia’s smartphones again”:
Also, Finnish operators say the Lumia 900 had a very promising, very good start of sales in Finland:
Statcounter above shows WP now continuing to grow to 7.53%. There is a marked decline in Symbian because statcounter stopped counting Symbian ans S40 as one thing (this only stopped in April, hence a lot of data up to then may have been misrepresenting the Symbian userbase and the rate of decline).
Taking 7.53% in the space of a few months is significant because this is new sales vs all current handsets in use.
StatCounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 3 million sites globally. These sites cover various activities and geographic locations. Every month, we record billions of page views to these sites. For each page view, we analyse the browser/operating system/screen resolution used and we establish if the page view is from a mobile device. For our search engine stats, we analyze every page view referred by a search engine. For our social media stats, we analyze every page view referred by a social media site. We summarize all this data to get our Global Stats information.
Finland’s mobile market is small – the whole population is only 5 million so take that into account. However, this is more of an important symbol than anything else, that Nokia can reclaim their own position in their on market and not be on consistent decline with their new line of products.
Windows Phone, via Lumia, is on a very good increase. It might look like there are two peaks of Windows Phone, the first occurring just by the end of 2010 but that’s actually Maemo.

Weekend Read: Nokia’s SmartStart support program for Lumia

Posted: 26 May 2012 01:00 AM PDT

WPCentral did a piece yesterday about something called Nokia SmartStart – something to help customers get support with their Nokia Lumia should they need it. This includes getting phone assistance that’s free scheduled by the Lumia owner.

An app is supposedly coming in about 4 weeks to book these one on one appointments.

Not everyone will need this service, but for those that do, this will be invaluable. Another great way to look after customers.

Source: WPCentral

Cheers all for the tip!

Weekend Watch: Nokia 808 vs Nokia Lumia 800 vs Nokia E7 (size) [Belle FP1 v112.020.0308.01.01)

Posted: 26 May 2012 12:08 AM PDT

A few things to take from this video. First, towards the end you can see a very useful size comparison. The 808 PureView doesn’t look to be all that thick (except for the ginormous sensor bit).

Against the E7, it looks more pocketable.

Something else to take note of is the Belle FP1 version 112.020.0308.01.01, dated 05-11-2012

The video:

by


Weekend Watch: Nokia 808 PureView 1 hour presentation!

Posted: 26 May 2012 12:08 AM PDT

 

Good morning folks! Do sit down, grab a muffin and a coffee for this 1 hour presentation (well 56 minutes) of the Nokia 808 PureView!

This is like a wonderful lecture all about the Nokia 808 PureView from the Zeiss Plant. This probably contributed to a lot of the tech blogs finally understanding what PureView is about.

I’m writing this (as with the other weekend watch) as a scheduled post – it’s 2am and I’ll probably be watching this as it gets published at 08:08 am GMT.

by

 
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)