New images of a Nokia Lumia 800 handset running on wpbench revealed a list of Greek names for what we can only assume are codenames for upcoming Windows Phone-powered Nokia handsets. Shared by the My Nokia Blog, the images came from a user running the Windows Phone 7 benchmark on his Lumia 800. The names include Nokia PureLambda, Nokia Phi, Nokia Pure Phi and Nokia Alpha.
Following last year's Microsoft partnership with Nokia, Bing Maps is the latest product to see a benefit. Starting today, users in 24 countries will be able to view active traffic data in Bing Maps as a result of Nokia services integration. United States traffic coverage will include side street traffic as well as freeway information. Behind the scenes, Nokia's geocoding services are now being used to offer improved turn-by-turn directions.
Nokia is said to be facing critical cash flow issues as it struggles to stem its growing losses in cellphone market share. Just five years ago, the Finnish handset maker had a cash stockpile of over $11 billion, which has now eroded to the point where the company only has $2.7 billion on hand which is shrinking by the day. Compounding matters, the costs of its debts are also rising, while its Lumia Windows 7 smartphones are yet to gain significant market traction making a quick turnaround unlikely.
Nokia's Lumia 900 represents the pinnacle of the company's new smartphone strategy, pairing premium components with a unique design and Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system. In our full review, we try to determine if the LTE radio, large display and other high-end features will help Nokia and Microsoft fulfill their dream of finally reestablishing themselves in the US smartphone market.
Owners of the iPhone 4S and Lumia 800 can get solid advice on just about anything, thanks to the voice-recognition technology built into the phones' digital assistant software; but it turns out that if they ask for advice on smartphones, they may wind up with a bit of buyer's remorse. As The Next Web found out through experimentation, the two phones give conflicting and complementary answers when you ask each what is the best smartphone.
First introduced at Mobile World Congress, Nokia's Reading app and related e-bookstore for the Windows Phone-powered Lumia range of smartphones will launch in Europe. The two will reach users in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, and the UK, PaidContent reported. The idea is to bring local-language e-books to markets that haven't yet seen a widespread adoption of the medium.
Nokia has for some time now been showing off the capabilities of its PureView 808, a 41-megapixel smartphone with considerable photo and video capturing prowess. The phone has been available for pre-order in a number of countries, and Nokia has talked up the phone's impending launch worldwide, with the exception of the United States and Canada. Now, in an interview with PC Magazine, Nokia's US president Chris Weber has revealed that the PureView 808 will indeed be coming to American shores, but details on its arrival remain sketchy.
Apple has modified a proposed nano-SIM design to accommodate objections by Nokia, says The Verge. SIM card maker Giesecke & Devrient has been showing off the design at the CTIA trade show in New Orleans. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is soon set to vote for one of several card designs proposed by cellphone makers; a vote was, in fact, originally scheduled to take place in March, but the dispute between Apple and Nokia led to a postponement.
Nokia is still in the beginning stages of its smartphone transformation, which focuses on the Windows Phone-equipped Lumia lineup. The Finnish company did not bring any new hardware to CTIA this week, however representatives did allow Electronista to take an early look at several of its Windows Phone apps, including the augmented-reality utility City Lens, that aim to differentiate the Lumia series from other smartphone platforms and other devices in the Windows Phone realm.
Nokia is continuing its push to differentiate its Lumia line of handsets from other manufacturers' Windows Phone offerings, announcing today a range of partnerships with various app makers that will see the Lumia get timed exclusives for several apps. The deals mean that apps like Groupon, AOL Entertainment Hub, and others will, for a limited time after launch, hit the Lumia before coming to any other Windows Phone handsets.
Nokia has just added a beta app to its Windows Phone offerings. Called the Nokia City Lens Augmented Reality Browser, it allows users to point their cameras at a new neighborhood and get information superimposed atop each storefront to see more information. Users can then click on the location to get even more data or walking directions to the spot.
Handset maker Nokia has come under legal fire, CNet reports today, and now faces a suit seeking damages for the company's poor and deteriorating performance. The suit argues that Nokia's executives have done a disservice to shareholders, and that shareholders are entitled to damages.
Nokia has promised new products ahead of what is expected to be a relatively heated meeting with disgruntled shareholders. In an interview with the Financial Times, retiring Chairman Jorma Ollila has said that the former world number one handset maker by volume would be releasing tablets as well as unspecified ‘hybrid’ smart devices, although without committing to a timeframe. His comments come on the back of Nokia’s shares being downgraded to ‘junk’ status as well as a disastrous past five years that has seen its shares plummet in value by 90 percent.
Nokia has filed several separate lawsuits against HTC, ViewSonic and Research In Motion. The latter companies are accused of patent infringement for technology that is claimed to be protected by as many as 45 different patents related to hardware and software.
Nokia has announced that its PureView 808 phone, which we tried out earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, is set to arrive in select markets sometime this month. The first countries to receive the camera-centric handset include India and Russia, ahead of a wider international rollout.
Samsung has taken the lead as the world’s number one mobile phone maker according to the latest report from analytics firm IDC. The report says that Samsung has achieved the number one spot due to its booming smartphone sale in a global smartphone market that grew by 42.5 percent year over year in Q1 2012. Total smartphone shipments for the quarter were 144.9 million, which compared with 101.7 million sales for the same period last year.
Nokia's plans to shed its Vertu brand have reportedly come closer after a leak [free reg. required]. Uncredited tips to the FT had one of Nokia's Finnish neighbors, private equity firm Permira, reportedly in talks to buy the luxury phone badge for about €200 million ($264.9 million). A competing equity group, EQT, had discussed the idea at one point but would have stalled.
Habitual smartphone experimenter Steve Wozniak in a podcast (embedded below) gave strong compliments to Windows Phone. Having picked up a Lumia 900 weeks earlier, the Apple co-founder still picked the iPhone as his favorite but argued to aNewDomain that Windows Phone was better than any Android phone. It had the "most beautiful" visual experience of any platform, Wozniak said, and its presentation made him feel like he was "with a friend, not a tool."
IHS iSuppli posted an estimate that suggested Apple may have kept its frontrunner position in smartphones in the earliest quarter of 2012. Although Samsung hasn't officially published smartphone shipments, researchers believed that it had shipped 32 million devices, putting it behind Apple's 35.1 million iPhones. If true, the gap would be wider than in the fall, when Samsung's reported 35 million to 36 million was close to Apple's 37 million.
Nokia has been testing the potential uses of white spaces for indoor positioning. The testing, based at the Imperial War Museum in Cambridge, UK, uses a Nokia N9 to supply information to users on nearby exhibits.
Nokia faced its third credit rating cut in a month on Friday in signs of a further confidence problem. Standard & Poor dropped Nokia's rating to junk status based on a shortfall in cash strength. While its existing cash was a "positive factor," the firm said, it expected the phone designer's cash to drop from a predicted 4.9 billion euros ($6.5 billion) to no more than four million euros ($5.3 billion).
Samsung has achieved a milestone in toppling Nokia for the crown of top cellphone maker, Strategy Analytics estimated in a new study. Using unofficial figures for Samsung as well as official data elsewhere, it had Samsung leading with 93.5 million cellphones sold, or 25.4 percent of the entire space. Nokia's rapid decline in smartphones saw it tumble from 108.5 million phones at the start of 2011 to 82.7 million a year later, or 22.5 percent.
Former Nokia and later Symbian Foundation executive Lee Williams in an interview Wednesday blamed current CEO Stephen Elop for the company's current troubles. The former Symbian S60 Senior VP told CNET that Elop had "no overarching vision," allegedly unlike his predecessors. Before him, Nokia was purportedly always focused on the future and would "never give up" its stance as the lead.
The European Patent Office has revoked a patent owned by IPCom, days after the company won a patent case against Nokia. The patent describes a method for connecting and prioritizing devices on 3G networks.
Nokia’s UK Lumia 900 launch originally anticipated to launch April 27 has been bumped back to ‘around May 14,’ the reportedly the result of stronger than expected demand for the flagship Windows Phone 7 device in the US. The company has said that demand for the device is outstripping supply and that it is ramping up production of the Lumia 900 so that can strike a better balance between supply and demand.
Nokia's emphasis on color for the Lumia 900 may be driving strong sales at the company along with leading to more colors. Both online checks at AT&T and new verifications by CNET on the retail situation have confirmed that, while all examples were in high demand, the cyan and new white versions were "especially difficult to find," according to an AT&T spokesperson. Shipments were going out daily, but AT&T couldn't say when it would have consistent supply.
Nokia has suffered a symbolic blow with Fitch Ratings downgrading the Finnish mobile device maker’s shares to junk status, reports Reuters. The revised rating, down from BB+ to BBB-, was assigned on the grounds that the company appears unable to reverse its downward slide. Fitch also suggested that it might downgrade Nokia’s shares further if it does not start to show signs of a recovery soon.
Updates for the Nokia Lumia 710 and Chinese market-specific 800c have been spotted on Navifirm, allowing upgrades to the variant of Windows Phone 7.5 (WP7.5) known as Tango. The upgrades are only currently available in China, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Vietnam.
Nokia has just debuted the newest version of its web browser app for phones across its Series 40 range of phones. The launch of the new browser version brings cloud-based browsing and social media integration, among other features, to Nokia's entry-level handset line.
The total mobile user base is significantly less oriented towards Android than phone market share would suggest, according to research. An InMobi study saw iOS extend a slight lead in North America based on ad impressions, going from an 0.6-point lead at 33.1 percent in the fall to a 2.7-point gap at 36.8 percent in the winter. It had Apple, not Google, growing faster for at least the past several months.
White models of the Nokia Lumia 900 are now available in AT&T stores, according to photos posted by Mobility Digest . The white version of Nokia's flagship Windows Phone 7 smartphone, previously revealed in an accidental post on the company's Facebook page, arrives two days prior to that model's intended April 22 release.
In a stylish new promo video (below), Nokia has chosen to show the photo and video capturing prowess of its 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone. Instead of simply recording the phone at work, the video itself was shot entirely using the 808, taking advantage of its 41-megapixel resolution to zoom in and out of scenes without losing detail.
Nokia isn't too concerned by losing a court case on Friday related to phone patents belonging to patent firm IPCom. The ruling affects only phones that are no longer sold by the company, so the damage is minimal, according to Nokia. A company spokesperson said the patent was granted in February of 2011 and current products use different technology.
Microsoft saw its Windows unit partly return to form on Thursday as it once again reported gains. Following Windows division losses in the fall, the group has seen its revenue go up four percent to just over $4.6 billion. The segment succeeded mostly on the back of business desktops and infrastructure, Microsoft said, suggesting that home users and pro notebooks were still struggling.
Nokia saw its dire quarterly results joined by both an executive shift and a key phone launch. The company's executive VP of sales, Colin Giles, will leave as of June 30. The exit gave the company a chance to simplify its structure, as all its regional senior VPs would now talk directly to the executive of Markets, VP Niklas Savander.
Nokia has posted (pdf) another disappointing quarterly result. For the first quarter of 2012, it has reported an operating loss of $1.7 billion, with a net loss of $775 million. Nokia had originally hoped to turn a small profit for the period, but a massive dive in smartphone sales put an end to that more optimistic outlook. Instead, the company only sold 11.9 smartphones for the quarter against the 24.9 million it did during the same period last year.
Best Buy and Microsoft have teamed up on a Behind the Tiles series of events to spur on Windows Phone sales that borrow a handful of Apple cues. Running from Thursday to as late as May 17, some stores will be holding workshops that both let users try the overall lineup and undertake a "deep dive" into the Lumia 900 with an instructor. The events will be catered, and even developers and enterprise users will get the "latest info," Microsoft said.
Microsoft may soon provide some of the first real details of Windows Phone 8 (Apollo), including signs that it will keep or even expand its flexibility. An upcoming Reading, UK summit whose agenda was caught by NetbookNews presented a possibly complete picture of Windows Phone 8's feature set and app support with an eye towards supporting carriers. Among them was mention of "customization & differentiation opportunities," suggesting carriers and hardware makers would still have some opportunity to tailor the software to their own ends.
Windows Phone saw mixed performance Wednesday as talk of strong sales was dampened by an abrupt executive departure. Nokia briefed AllThingsD that the Lumia 900's demand was still high and it was producing phones "as quickly as possible" to meet demand. Very few were opting to replace their phones to solve the missing data bug and were instead updating firmware, suggesting that the shipments weren't replacement units.
A quartet of European carriers' executives have leaked word that Nokia's Lumia line still wasn't manifesting significant sales. Keeping the sources anonymous out of client sensitivity, Reuters understood that stores rarely if ever had customers explicitly ask for a Windows Phone, or else were being steered towards Android or iPhones like they are in the US. Carriers were urging Microsoft and Nokia to either discount the phones more heavily or put in heavy marketing, neither of which they were seeing.
Moody's on Monday downgraded Nokia's debt rating a level from Baa2 to Baa3. The credit rating giant based its decision on Nokia's lowered outlook and saw it as a reflection of longer-term, more systemic issues. The company was being pinched both at the low end, by a wave of very cheap phones and Chinese discounts, and at the high end by a "more challenging" transition where Symbian was falling faster than Windows Phone could replace it.
Nokia has inadvertently let some owners of the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 get full control over their phones. A discovery by XDA-Developers member biktor_gj has found that some phones ship with Qualcomm's stock bootloader, not the Nokia-customized version, and can load any custom firmware. Accordingly, he had already posted an interop unlock that lets owners load virtually any app, not just those cleared through the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Nokia gave a surprise for the weekend with word that its promised data fix for the Lumia 900 was already available. The new update solves a problem where all cellular data would stop working after the phone was restarted, requiring an extensive trick to get it back. Nokia had previously pinned the flaw on a memory management hiccup.
AT&T showed early clues that the Nokia Lumia 900 may be selling well enough to be positive for the company. Retail president Paul Roth in remarks late Wednesday asserted to the Wall Street Journal that sales had 'exceeded expectations.' At least some stores had sold out, most often of the more distinctive cyan model, by Tuesday night.
Nokia are today rolling out its previously announced Belle Feature Pack 1 firmware for the Nokia 701, 700 and 603. Over the air updates now available include a processor boost from 1GHz to 1.3GHz, a version 8.2 web browser, and new widgets, amongst other improvements.
A preliminary estimate by IHS iSuppli puts the base manufactured cost of the new Nokia Lumia 900 at $217. This would translate to a reasonable margin for AT&T if it were to sell it for its listed $450 non-contract price, but a significant loss at its planned contract price is $100.
Early investigations have suggested that Nokia and AT&T attempts to have staff use the Lumia 900 may not be having an impact on actual recommendations in the short term. A tour by CNET of five Manhattan-area AT&T stores just after launch showed that staff not only didn't know much about the Windows Phone flagship but were actively steering users to the iPhone. A companion check by IDC researcher Ramon Llamas in Massachusetts showed one Windows Phone recommendation, but most recommended Android hardware like the Galaxy Note.
Nokia sent out a warning on Wednesday that its results for the first quarter of 2012 would be worse than expected as its smartphone sales continued to struggle. Its operating margin would now be down by three percent instead of flat, while that for the just-started spring quarter would be similar or lower. "Competitive industry dynamics" and tighter profit margins were to blame, Nokia said, making clear allusions to fiercer competition from Android and the iPhone.
Nokia has unveiled a new version of its Lumia 610 Windows Phone for Orange that also packs NFC support. Until now, the feature has been reserved for handsets higher up in its Lumia range and is the first time it has appeared on its entry-level Lumia smartphone. Nokia says that it has built-in the necessary hardware and software enablers for the implementation of NFC payment and ticketing solutions, while it also compatible with both Mastercard and Visa's POS NFC devices.
Nokia in a statement said it would temporarily cut the price of the Lumia 900 even further. The firm told AllThingsD that it would compensate buyers hit by the disappearing data bug on the Windows Phone by either giving them a retroactive credit or with the purchase. The deal will last until April 21.
