SEVENCLICK
Mobile Technology Evangelists

Finally, we have on our hands the first beta release of Fennec, the Firefox browser for mobile devices. It’s the milestone number 12 in the development roadmap and its intented for testing purposes, get wider feedback, engage community and encourage add-on developers to port existing add-ons. It’s only available for ‘Maemo’, the Linux OS running on Nokia N810 Internet Tablets.

You can look at all the features in the Release Notes. There’s nothing shocking, but some of them are really inteteresting. I specially like what they call ‘Devices services integration’: click on a phone number to initiate a call and a JavaScript API to get device location.

Anyway, I must confess I’m a bit disappointed by the pace of Mozilla’s advances in its mobile version. Two years ago, Mozilla decided to discontinue the Minimo browser project. It was the first attempt. Some months after, they announced their intention of starting a new project and Fennec development started from the ground up.

From that moment, the release of a stable version has been delayed time over time, and now we have no idea of when we’ll have a version for a mainstream platform (Windows Mobile or Symbian, the only two covered by Fennec).

Let’s hope all the feedback and re-encouraged contributions of the community will help to make Fennec a reality as soon as possible. Otherwise, it could be too late for them, as all WebKit-derived browsers take the market.

Via ObservatorioInternetMovil
Links ReleaseNotes SevenClick SevenClick

Firmed by artist Marius Watz, Nokia has released an application for Nokia E71 that turns your text messages into “unique pieces” of Art.

The picture can be set as wallpaper, sent via MMS, and many other not-so-useful options. Right now, the Text Art application is only available for the E71 and can be downloaded for free on the Nokia E71 website, where you can also try it online in the most likely case you don´t have an E71.

Via Register Hardware

After having talked about the mobile browser Skyfire, now it’s available to be downloaded. So far it works on Windows Mobile (5, 6, and 6.1) and Symbian S60 (3rd edition), and only in these countries: US, Canada, and UK. However, you can use it in other countries at your own discretion. But the problem now, is that from their website you can only download it sending an SMS to phones from thos countries. So some of us will have to wait…

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Some months ago RedFiveLabs launched the first release of NET60. It was a very important step forward, as it brought .NET CF applications to Symbian S60 cellphones.

But it has a big drawback. It only covered .NET Compact Framework 1.0. This was quite disappointing because nowadays the vast majority of .NET CF applications (at least, those that I’m used to) are targetting version 2.0.

Now, the South African company, with this new release, adds support for .NET CF 2.0. This means that we could start considering NET60 in our deployment decissions when talking about delivering applications for multiple platforms.

Moreover, while this is very good news, it’s even better. RedFiveLabs have added a managed wrapper for some Symbian native functionality: SMS, Telephony, GPS, Sound, Vibration, Camera and OpenGL 3D. And, if this is not enough, you can access all native Symbian APIs via P/Invoke.

In additon, making it even more frienly for .NET guys, the SDK includes a Visual Studio plug-in, for developing an generating SIS files from Visual Studio directly.

Awesome!

Via XatakaMovil
Link RedFiveLabs

Rumors have stopped finally, let’s see the official news. Symbian Limited and Nokia have announced the new touch screen phone called Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Actually have not revealed the exact date, but Nokia has said in a press release that it will be available worldwide beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008. The estimated retail price is 279 EUR before taxes and subsidies.

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Two days ago Google launched its new web browser, called Google Chrome. Quickly lots of people downloaded it to have a try and see how it worked. After some testing time I can say that it does run fast. With high probability, the reason is the new browser engine it uses, launching each website and tab like a new process and in a smart and easy way.

But after testing it I thought “Ok but, will Google provide a Chrome version for mobile devices?”. And surprisingly I got an answer from Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, who talked about this in an interview at the Chrome launch event. In the event he said that Chrome will make its way to Android, the company’s mobile phone operating system and software suite.

Brin also said that both Android and Chrome have been developed separately but that now the two projects are public and nearing their first final releases, it’s probably that Android’s browser “is going to pick up a lot of the Chrome stack”, pointing to JavaScript improvements as one area. Chrome and Android’s current browser both already employ WebKit, an open-source project for the process of interpreting the HTML code that makes up a Web page and rendering it on a screen, what makes them get closer.

With this on-working state browser and the current mobile browsers, we start to have the chance to choose a web browser for our mobile device, although in some cases it depends on the O.S. our device has. Below you can find a little table with the current mobile web browsers, the O.S. they support and the development state.

I wish all these browsers were cross platform and then we could forget about our device O.S. and choose the one we like most even if we change our phone.

Via MobileCrunch

Ipoki is a Spanish social network based on localization. Its main service is sharing your position with your friends in real time and tracking your buddies location in Google Maps and Google Earth.

Plugins for Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 and Blackberry are available. But, if your device does not include GPS, you can update your position on your web browser.

Your location information can be used for automatically geoloc your photographs in Flickr and other web services.

Now, Ipoki has developed a new service they call Life Streaming, that generates a KML file that includes all the positions you have recorded and adds the related items to each position – Flickr photos, videos, etc …

It’s one more example in the field of location based services, that for sure will be commonplace and very appreciated by mainstream users.

Via Loogic
Link Ipoki

“Nokia Email service is mobile email made easy.” This can be read on the official Nokia Email website, home of a new service still in beta, which will help you if you are one of these Internet addicts who need a permanent link to your online world. Thanks to it, you will have Push Email on you Nokia smartphone, enjoying real-time follow-up of your email accounts.

As a beta service, it only works with POP and IMAP accounts. “Corporate email and MSN Hotmail are not currently supported”, Nokia explains… but hey, read the FAQ : “There is no charge for using Nokia Email service during the beta trial.” Hope this lasts long!

Via Gizmóvil

Probably only a few of you readers know who Michael Mace is.  Well, I think that he will introduce himself better than me:

“I’m a principal at Rubicon Consulting, where we help tech companies solve tough strategy and marketing problems. Drop by and sign up for our newsletter. I’m former Chief Competitive Officer and VP of Product Planning at Palm, VP of Strategic Marketing at PalmSource, director of Mac Platform Marketing at Apple, and served in a lot of other roles. For more info on me, visit my website.”

Pretty Impressve, isn’t it? Apart from these, he writes a personal blog named “Mobile Oportunity” where he analyses, very precissely I must admit, key events related to mobile world.  He is not very prolific (Michael, if you read this, please, don’t take it as a critic ), one post a week, but his posts are always worth reading.

One of the his last posts has been specially interested for me. It talks about Psion, a company we could cald Symbian’s father. The post mentions an extremelly interesting article by The Register about Psion, which is also worth reading.

Please, take this advice and spent (not waste) some time reading both articles.  You will not regret it.

Link Mobile Oportunity – The end of the dream
Link The Register – Psion the last computer

Nokia has released today this big news:

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS(TM), S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform.

The Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation’s first day of operations.

The Foundation will make selected components available as open source at launch. It will then work to establish the most complete mobile software offering available in open source. This will be made available over the next two years and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0.

“Establishing the Foundation is one of the biggest contributions to an open community ever made,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia.

The Foundation’s platform will build on the leading open mobile software platform, with more than 200 million phones, across 235 models.

This is one of the biggest announcements in mobile phones field in years, mobile leades to unify a software, mainly to beat the iphone´s career. I think. iPhone keeps your chin up.

Link Nokia Press Release