Rating: We’re not sure how millions will benefit, though
So it seems that Nokia is still determined to keep flogging what everyone knows now is a dead horse- namely, the Symbian OS. Ilari Nurmi, a vp with Nokia, has declared that, “Our ongoing commitment to Symbian will see up to ten more phones introduced over the next 12 months, plus further updates to the user experience and support for the software until at least 2016.” To try to demonstrate to the world that it is still a player in the smartphone stakes, Nokia has today [August 18th 2011] made available (as an update) the very latest release of the OS known as Symbian Anna. This is intended to introduce a whole bunch of new features that will make Anna more user-friendly but more business-friendly and developer friendly too. Nurmi talks about Symbian smartphones being used by millions of people around the world every day. But, unless GoMo News has got this terribly wrong, this update only applies to a very specific number of Symbian ^3 handsets.In fact, we believe that the Anna update only applies if you have a Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01 and Nokia E7. If you’ve got an X7 or E6, you should already have Anna.
We think that the key advantage to be gained by Nokia from releasing Anna to existing handset owners is that it activates the NFC (Near Field Communication) hardware in the Nokia C7.
So owners can now simply tap their Nokia C7s together to share contacts, photos, videos and play games. Plus they can pair with NFC-enabled accessories from other manufacturers besides Nokia, too.
What is for certain is that existing Symbian ^3 handset owners should make completely sure that they have the very latest version of Ovi Suite (3.1.1) on a their PCs for guaranteed success.
It is actually possible to do an OTA (Over-The-Air) update directly to a smartphone, although Nokia points out that the method of delivery for the software update differs from market to market and operator to operator.
Best to use a Wi-fi connexion to download it and may quite sure you’ve saved all your personal data first.
What’s in it for developers? Well, Anna offers support for: – Flashlite 4; Java Runtime 2.2; Qt Mobility 1.1; and Qt4.7. There’s supposed to be more information available via www.nokia.com/symbiananna but that URL is currently bugged and points to a blank page.
We’d guess that a report on the chances of Nokia staying independent and surviving without making Android handsets would look very similar.
Finally, Anna displays some of the fruits of the close relationship between Microsoft and Nokia via support for instant messaging and presence with Microsoft Communicator Mobile. Er, great.
Well, at least the die-hard Nokia enthusiasts haven’t given up. They’re all now looking forward to Symbian ^4 which should be Belle or is that Bella?
