I ask because smartphones have contracts, generally and because of that they seem like a complicated thing to gift. And a personal decision! What do you think about it?

This chart from Fierce Developer shows that while Apple and RIM have been booming, and Symbian and Android have shown decent growth for smaller players, Palm webOS and Windows Mobile have been largely stagnant. Microsoft even managed to lose market share between May and July. At the rate this is going, the two carriers will need some drastic changes to stay in the game. For Palm, the answer could be as simple as an expanded or refreshed product line. For Microsoft, though, it looks like a fix won't be coming any time soon. [Comscore via Fierce Developer via Electronista]

It's currently most optimized for WebKit browsers—iPhone, Android, webOS and Symbian—but BlackBerrys work too. It's built entirely using Twitter's own APIs, hence the announcement post's title, "Takeout Dogfood." (Why not ice cream?) For now, you'll have to go to mobile.twitter.com to use it, but they'll eventually be transitioning m.twitter.com over to the new site as they work out all the kinks. And so far, it's pretty impressive, even if it does feel a tad slower than I'd like at the moment.

[Twitter, Twitter]

Our suspicions were raised three days ago when they stated they'd only be releasing one Maemo device in 2010, being a figurative bullet in the foot of the Finnish company, considering the N900 is the best thing they've released for years. Even with the rather odd advert.

Now, in a webcast yesterday, Nokia's Chief of Smartphones Jo Harlow claimed:

"We see ... really fierce competition certainly in the high end, but we also see it in the mid to low end of smartphones increasing"

This tactic of releasing dumbed-down handsets which look, feel and act exactly like the last 50 models to be sold was mentioned at Nokia Capital Markets Day earlier in the week by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who wants to bring prices down to increase margins.

Cutting smartphone production in half for 2010, Nokia's claiming it launched around 20 high-end devices this year. 20? They obviously have a different opinion on what's considered a premium handset, if that's true. Antti Vasara, the Head of Smartphones R&D at Nokia, stated that:

"We have cut down unnecessary differentiation, so that we have a far more focused portfolio for next year"

Is releasing just one Maemo device (the far-superior platform to Symbian) considered "unnecessary differentiation"? We would've called it "offering punters what they want," keeping in mind the N900 has far outsold expectations, forcing Nokia to delay sales in both the US and Europe.

Even at Mobile World Congress, when Nokia first introduced the N900, you could see they didn't value the device as being a worthy of flagship status, devoting just a couple of minutes at the end of the presentation to it, calling it a "niche" product. Even the lack of exclusive carrier support suggests that Nokia wasn't pushing it hard enough, instead focusing its energies on the pitiful N97.

Sorry Nokia, but if you do indeed release more "dumbphones" than smartphones in 2010, you're going to run into trouble, and even your impressive market share can't stop us scheduling an urgent intervention meeting. We're worried, Nokia. It's time to talk. [Reuters]

Nokia's device top dog, Kai Öistämö, reiterated that they don't see the Symbian OS as the problem—just the interface. Accordingly, they're planning two big interface milestones for 2010, the first of which will arrive by mid-year. They plan to:

"Use a new optimized graphic architecture with a focus on graphics and responsiveness, showcased beautifully on a large capacitive screen. Later in the year, a completely new visual architecture re-working of the UI will drastically reduce the complexity throughout and bring fresh appeal. We will execute here." Big screens hey? That concept tablet in the slides sure looks interesting...

Beyond reduced clutter, Nokia also plans to improve input methods (including multi-touch and single tap controls). "Two taps to get to music and video instead of 8, and email access in two steps instead of four….There will also be a significantly improved browser experience."

"The interface will be over three times faster than our current high-end devices in many areas…Scrolling will move up to over 60fps compared to 15fps on our current high-end devices."

If they deliver, it may help Symbian phones (both smartphone and dumb) level off out of their nosedive into irrelevance. And interestingly, Nokia also plans to release its first Maemo 6-powered "mobile computer" late next year, too. FYI: The screens are from yesterday's webcast of Nokia's Capital Market Day for investors: [Nokia]

The latest of Nokia's reliably rousing Capital Markets Day reports points to two goals, both of which sit decidedly forward from here:

In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level...[Nokia will] deliver our first Maemo 6-powered mobile computer, with an iconic user experience, in the second half of 2010.

Forward in terms of time, obviously, but more importantly in terms of progress: Symbian is getting stale and needs this UI update badly, while Maemo, despite a generally positive reception, is still a little raw, with a slim device selection for at least another year. You can probably assume that Maemo 6 will be more polished and ready for the mainstream, but for now it's just words on paper.

That said, Nokia's self-help regimen will take time. Nokia expects their mobile device volume market share to stay flat for 2010, partly due to their conspicuous absence from the growing US smartphone scene, but mostly, I'm guessing, because even in their European strongholds, Symbian devices are starting to feel plain old.

So yeah, all eyes on Nokia, because things are just about to get exciting! In a year. [Nokia]

Reuters is claiming sources have tipped them off about Nokia's hesitation to go the whole hog with the Linux platform, despite rumors suggesting it would ditch Symbian for Maemo on all its upcoming N-Series devices. While we doubt they'll drop Symbian entirely, we've got to admit that Maemo 5 works a treat on the N900, and is certainly a lot more advanced than anything we've seen on Symbian S60. With Maemo 6 rearing its pretty little head, we would've thought Nokia would be throwing more weight behind this open source platform, especially given the early reviews that are crowing about how well it performs. [via Reuters]

That the iPhone is a massive source of online traffic isn't a surprise—that's been apparent since the week it launched. What's interesting here is Android's rise, which is dramatically quickening, already accounting for a fifth of mobile traffic in the US, when the real marketing push for the OS, starting with the MyTouch ads and the massive Droid launch, is only recently starting in earnest. What is a surprise, or at the very least a Sad Thing, is how poorly Palm is faring. Their tiny sliver of market share might seem understandable since they really only had one new phone for the duration of the survey, but this phone was supposed to be their savior; in the year since it was introduced, their mobile traffic actually fell.
Google and Apple's stark gain in the stats, collected by mobile advertising firm AdMob, is a little less spectacular worldwide, mainly because Symbian's established, but waning, 40% smartphone market share helps it snatch about 25% of mobile web traffic. Still though, two things are clear: Android and the iPhone are who mobile web developers are going to have to cater to, and WebKit, which Symbian uses in its browser too, is basically it.

Anyway, how about a bonus chart! Ever wondered how common the different Android handsets are, which is most popular, and which don't register? Well hello, extra pie:

The G1 is the predictable star here, but the Droid is exploding. [AdMob via Techcrunch]

Example: Sony Ericsson Timescape, the "signature" Nexus app, sounds a lot like HTC's Sense in that it pulls in a bunch of services like Facebook and Twitter for your contacts, but it's more straightforwardly organized around timelines, which you can break down by service, events or whatever. There's also an infinite button. For infinite discoveries.

MediaScape looks uncannily like Windows Media Center, if you stuck it on a phone. It's actually nice. The camera software is swanky, with facial recognition and tagging like a real Sony camera.

Apparently, it's not going to be restricted to just smartphones, but could reach some of their more "mainstream" phones. How they're going to get developers to develop apps for Nexus though, is another question entirely.

The S60 5th edition OS (as used on the N97 and N97 mini) might be mature, but it's pretty damn woeful. Maemo 5 (used by the N900) definitely has a better user experience, and though it's not perfect either, it's definitely headed in the right direction. Speaking of which, Nokia's next OS, Maemo 6, could look like this. [The Reality Mobile Project]

Only LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson make Symbian phones of note—Motorola axed its line. Samsung puts its TouchWiz UI on top of the dreadful S60 OS, and Sony Ericsson will likely do the same with its Rachael interface. Android is taking off, and even Nokia is looking to its Linux-based Maemo OS for its best stuff, like the N900. The Symbian OS still has a big slice of the phone market, but for how long?

And the cool UI in this video: The Symbian Foundation says that it's not part of the Symbian UI roadmap, but they hope some of its features and effects make it into their reference UI and/or delivered handsets. Will you still care? [All About Symbian via SlashGear]

Nokia's aging Symbian S60 OS isn't maturing so well, as seen on their N97 handset, and though they've made some positive strides with Maemo, it sounds like they might be limiting themselves to those two OSes—at least until the market forces them elsewhere. On the other hand, the "No Android" statement was pretty obvious.

Nothing for the iPhone. "Still a closed device and not much progress there," Adobe told us as they gleefully detailed that Flash was invading basically every other smartphone. Also, we gotta wait until mid-2010 for the full rollout.

But, betas for Windows Mobile and WebOS are coming this year, with Android and Symbian early next, meaning you can get your mobile Hulu on before then. BlackBerry will be a bit longer, since RIM just joined Adobe's Open Screen project. Supposedly, Flash won't run like total garbage on phones, either, like Flash Lite. Fingers crossed, guys!

The GPU acceleration for Flash is the real deal, for sure, though—I watched a Star Trek trailer on YouTube HD on an Nvidia Ion-powered HP Mini 311 output to an external monitor, even, and it ran flawlessly. Which, if you've ever tried to play an HD Flash clip, even on full-fledged systems it molests CPU cycles, so just working on a $400 netbook very nearly deserves applause.

Flash 10.1 has a few other tricks too with full support for multitouch, gestures and accelerometer input—meaning it'd be perfect on the iPhone, if Apple would ever let it through. And make no mistake, Apple is the roadblock there, since Adobe said engineering work has continued (10,000 years later). The fact that full Flash will be on basically every single smartphone platform also makes that pretty clear.

If you want to spin that positively (my coffee cup is half-full, after all) the iPhone is now basically the only place you can go to flee from Flash, which basically covers everything like a pulsating squid thing with icky tentacles and stuff, ceaselessly stretching out to ensnare more. There is no escape. Except the iPhone. (Which kinda makes no Flash a feature, right?)

Oh, and the new Adobe AIR—TweetDeck, the NY Times Reader and other software runs on top of it—will slightly be less abominable, gobbling less memory and acting more like a real application, with USB mass storage support, multitouch and gesture input, and p2p powers for stuff like Skype and gaming.

Bottom line, It's a Flashy world, we just live in it.

Adobe Unveils First Full Flash Player for Mobile Devices and PCs

Close to 50 Open Screen Project Participants Support New Browser Runtime for Multiple Platforms

LOS ANGELES - Oct. 5, 2009 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google® Android™ and Symbian® OS are expected to be available in
early 2010.

In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry® smartphones, and Google joined close to 50 other industry players in the Open Screen Project initiative.
Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across devices. Using the productive Web programming model of the Flash Platform, the browser-based runtime enables millions of designers and developers to reuse code and assets and reduce the cost of creating, testing and deploying content across different operating systems and browsers. Flash Player 10.1 is easily updateable across all supported platforms to ensure rapid adoption of new innovations that move the Web forward.

The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization. New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience. Flash Player 10.1 will also take advantage of media delivery with HTTP streaming, including integration of content protection powered by Adobe® Flash® Access 2.0. This effort, code-named Zeri, will be an open format based on industry standards and will
provide content publishers, distributors and partners the tools they need to utilize HTTP infrastructures for high-quality media delivery in Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe® AIR® 2.0 software.

"With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide. It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year."

"We are excited to join Adobe and other industry leaders in the Open Screen Project," said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management at Google. "This initiative supports our common goal to move the Web forward as a platform and to spur innovation in the industry through technology such as Adobe Flash."

"Adobe Flash technology provides a key experience on new Windows phones, enabling people to enjoy rich Flash based games, videos and other interactive Web content on the go," said Stephanie Ferguson, general manager, Product Management, Microsoft Corp. "We look forward to bringing in the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 to the Windows phone browser when it becomes available."

"Motorola is excited to be one of the first handset manufacturers to ship Android based devices with Flash Player support early next year," said Christy Wyatt, vice president of software applications and ecosystem at Motorola. "As the No.1 platform for video on the Web, uncompromised browsing of Flash technology based content is essential for a rich mobile experience and something users expect from Motorola today."

"As a longtime partner of Adobe, and more than 400 million Nokia phones shipped with existing Flash technology to date, we are excited to see Flash Player becoming a reality for mobile phones and other mobile devices," said Purnima Kochikar, vice president, Forum Nokia. "Nokia is excited about full Flash Player coming to devices and we are committed to supporting Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices in 2010."

[Adobe]

A 21-year-old woman who lives with her brother and parents on the India side of the disputed India-Pakistani border was in her home when three gunmen burst in demanding food and lodging. The woman's father refused and was attacked and the woman, who was hiding under a bed, attacked the assailant with an ax, and then grabbed his gun as he went down, shooting him dead. Feel free to read the full story, it's pretty intense, and the guy may well have been a major Pakistani terrorist. I'll admit, this has little to do with gadgets, but even you have to agree, ax to AK is one hell of an upgrade. [Telegraph UK via a million tweets]

Speaking of upgrades, anyone who migrates to Windows 7 Pro, Enterprise or Ultimate who's still missing XP can officially virtualize that sweet old OS, says our friend Mary Jo Foley, who reports that the lauded XP Mode has been released to manufacturing, and will be present in time for the Oct. 22 Windows 7 launch. [ZDNet]

This is an example of me scratching my head at the way tech business is conducted. GigaOm reports a scoop that Lenovo will likely pre-install Skype on a bazillion new ThinkPads soon, advertising the VOIP maven in the Start menu, and allowing people to "install and sign up for Skype without downloading the software." In other words, one of these companies is taking money from the other one to turn a perfectly decent free utility into crapware, in hopes that, what, some IT guys won't just go and delete it from their deployed fleet of laptops? Sorry, but there has to be a better way to build brand equity than simply being the app people didn't delete during initial setup. [GigaOm]

Generally we love iSuppli's fat pipeline of sound manufacturer-based information, but this time, I think there's something in the pipe besides info: A report today says that by 2013, Windows Mobile will be in second place behind Symbian in world smartphone market share, following a dip where they drop to third place. Whaaaaaaa? We plan to follow this up, since iSuppli is generally a smart source, and the report seems to be measuring licenses rather than actual user base. Still, I wanted to drop it here, because it's insane-tastic. [iSuppli]

The 3G Erdos has a 2.4-inch OLED 320 x 240 display that remains invisible under mirrored glass until you turn it on. It also has Wi-Fi, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 8GB of internal memory, and a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash, and video recording capability.

Too bad it is still a glorified dumb phone. [Cellpassion via Luxury Launches]

Nokia will try again to tackle Apple Inc's iPhone in the top-end of the handset market with a bet on Linux software, several industry sources told Reuters.

Top handset maker Nokia will show its first high-end phone running on Maemo, a version of Linux, next week at the annual Nokia World event in Stuttgart, Germany, the sources said

Come to think of it, it is pretty weird that the phone-sized, phone-shaped, phone-button-having N900 has until recently been consistently assumed to be a tablet, even though the prospect of a QWERTY Maemo handset has been openly discussed for well over a year now, and explicitly predicted as far back as October. There may still be a gutted tablet version, but this thing has the heart, soul and body of a smartphone—I'd say this is what Reuters is talking about when they say "Maemo handset", even if they don't know it.

Kicked out of the high end of Nokia's product line, Symbian—which remember, they recently plunged nearly $400m into—would be relegated to the dregs of Nokia's product line, where it would presumably, eventually, wither and die. Sad!

Anyway, Maemo: It handles great on a tablet, but nobody really knows how it'll translate to a phone. That said, the N900 is largish and has a QWERTY-shaped crutch, so expectations, so majestically shattered last month, are back on high. [Reuters]

The Price: TBD, at least as far as subsidized carrier deals go. You can grab it unlocked now for about $650, but 3G may not work on your carrier.

The Verdict: The Omnia HD does everything fine, and a few things extremely well. Video playback is top notch and widely compatible, the camera is among the best I've ever seen on a cellphone, and the video recording can actually hang with a lot of pocket cams, like the Flip or Kodak Zi series. On all other counts the phone never falls flat, but it never really shines, either.

The Hardware: Your first impression of the Omnia HD is that it's big, but that's not really fair: It's a tall device, but it's not meaningfully larger than any of the other popular touchscreen phones on the market today—it's just proportioned differently (see the gallery below for comparison). And for all the hardware crammed inside, it's reasonably thin. Speaking of guts: It's got HSDPA (on European bands), GPS, 8-16GB of internal storage with microSD expansion, and 8MP, 720p-recording camera sensor, a built-in flash bulb, a forward-facing video camera, USB connector and a 3.5mm jack. The lack of HDMI-out is semi-replaced by DLNA network streaming, though it's not really an even trade. At any rate, it's a healthy phone, hardware-wise.

Samsung touts the AMOLED screen over pretty much everything else, and with some good reason. It's vibrant and sharp, but side by side with an iPod Touch, it isn't strikingly better. The benefits of the OLED, such as they are, seem to manifest themselves more in the phone's long-ish battery life than anything else. In terms of touch, it's a capacitive panel, and it's extremely responsive. Any lag or difficulties with touch controls or soft keyboard are entirely down to the software.

Cellphone cameras are generally horrible, so the Omnia HD's camera is a rare treat. Seriously: I even trusted it to shoot a headphone review last week, and it came through impressively well. It'll match a low-end point-and-shoot in most situations, barring low-light—the sensor can't really handle darker situations too well, and the flash is pretty wimpy—and fast-motion scenes. Video, on the other hand, is at least pocket-cam quality. In daylight it's razor-sharp at 720p, while in low light it's passable. Novel-but-not-terribly-useful slo-mo and high-speed modes are thrown in for good measure. The Omnia HD doesn't quite match up to the best-of-the-bunch Kodak Zi8, for example, but it's amazingly close, especially for a phone. A phone, with a decent camera! How did this happen?

The Software: This is where things fall apart a little. Wherever the Omnia HD's hardware shines—along with the kickass camera, it can handle HD video playback in plenty of codecs—the software is fine. The camera interface and media playback interfaces, music and video, are never distracting and usually do what you expect. Everything else? That's a different story.

Samsung's thrown the old Omnia's TouchWiz widget UI, originally designed for Windows Mobile, onto the Symbian-powered HD. This in itself is fine, since TouchWiz has always been a decent, finger-friendly homescreen, wherever it shows up. Outside of the three main TouchWiz panels, though, is a bizarre UI stew, some from Symbian, some from Samsung, and some from the deepest bowels of design hell. For example: Scrolling! Instead of throwing menus and selecting entries, the selection follows your finger. It's hard to explain, but it's a terrible way to have to trudge around a menu-heavy operating system. The onscreen keyboard seems to be a Samsung special too. It's fine—it's spacious and rarely lags—but it's set on a perfect grid, doesn't come with any autocorrect and generally feels like it was designed in about an hour.

Outside of the core multimedia and homescreen areas, the phone is a fairly raw take on Symbian's S60 5th Edition shell, which means the UI is inconsistent and difficult to tackle with fingers. Not to mention S60's needlessly inserted extra steps all over the place. Want to enter a URL? Press a button, type your address, press another button, and press another. It doesn't make any sense. Samsung's given Symbian something of a makeover, but most of Matt's complaints about the N97 software carry over to the HD. Everything—even basic calling, contact management and OS navigation—is overcomplicated and disorganized, beyond the point of a "learning curve."

Functionally, though, it holds up fine: The browser could be easier to navigate with, but renders with WebKit, supports Flash and generally does its job. Same goes for pretty much everything else: The experience could be smoother, but you'd be hard pressed to find a task that the HD explicitly can't handle. And if you do find a gap, remember that this is full Symbian, so you can always go app hunting. As dumb as the UI can be, don't be fooled into thinking this is a dumbphone: It can do pretty much anything an Android or Windows Mobile phone can, and sometimes even more—it's just that sometimes, it's painfully awkward.

Vivid, responsive, generously proportioned touchscreen

Camera shoots nice stills, surprisingly great 720p video

Powerful HD video playback, wide default codec compatibility

3.5mm jack!

DLNA, but no HDMI

Aging, overcomplicated Symbian/S60 software

UI is extremely inconsistent, occasionally unresponsive

No carrier availability yet, iffy US 3G support

[Samsung]

The problem is, Nokia and Microsoft are actually competitors in Nokia's main game. Nokia's Symbian mobile OS competes directly with Microsoft's Windows Mobile, so it's highly unlikely that Nokia would be manufacturing, say, WinMo handsets. They've already shot down a similar move when they denied a rumor that they'd be creating an Android phone.

Our best (or at least most optimistic) guess? Nokia's already rumored to be partnering with Intel to create some sort of netbook or tablet. If the two companies could team up with Microsoft to make a badass Windows 7 tablet, it'd steal thunder from Apple's rumored tablet (if the damn thing ever surfaces) and be a pretty enviable product in itself. Of course, this could just be something boring as all hell, like Bing or Outlook on Symbian, but we can always hope for the best. We'll let you know what comes out of this alliance of giants tomorrow. [Engadget]

Update: Well, it's not a Nokia tablet, nor a Zunephone, nor is it the least bit exciting in any way. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft has reached a deal with Nokia to bring Office to the Symbian platform. You may commence holding down your "Z" key in the comments, to signify your snoozing. Also acceptable is a general mashing of the keys, to indicate that you have fallen asleep on your keyboard. [WSJ]

The RX-5 is packing a 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, a full QWERTY in the style of the N97 or Sony's XPERIA series, and a bunch of other interesting features:

* Screen resolution of 800 by 480 pixels.

* Support for both chambers. * Support for both Chambers. The most advanced auto could count, flash, and a resolution of 2608 by 1966 pixels, about 5 megapixels The most advanced auto could count, flash, and a resolution of 2608 by 1966 pixels, about 5 megapixels

* FM transmitter and receiver * FM transmitter and receiver

* Accelerometer * Accelerometer

* WiFi b and g standards under * WiFi b and g standards under

* Internal Memory 128 megabytes DDR manufactured by Samsung * Internal Memory 128 megabytes DDR manufactured by Samsung

* Keyboard is similar to the N810, with a few extra keys * Keyboard is similar to the N810, with a few extra keys

* Chipset OMAP3 ARM Texas Instruments, with support for frequency scaling * Chipset OMAP3 ARM Texas Instruments, with support for frequency scaling

* Linux Operating System based on Maema 5 * Linux Operating System based on Maema 5

Looks interesting, but we're not sure it'll help drag Nokia out of their design rut. Frankly, we'd be a lot more excited about a revamped Symbian than another new slider, but we'll take what we can get. [Kaskus Forums via Engadget]