Free cross-platform messengers for smartphones

Sending text messages, sharing multimedia and staying connected with friends who use a different operating system from your own is easily done with the apps we've picked.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry smartphones have become quite popular in India in recent months. While the dispute between RIM and the Government of India persists, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) has become a popular application that keeps the majority of BlackBerry owners busy, texting their contacts, friends and relatives.

The primary reason for BBM's popularity is that it is integrated with the BlackBerry operating system and is a light-weight app that is economical in its consumption of resources. Users can send and receive text, photos, audio and video, and can receive real-time delivery confirmations. BBM's chief purpose is that it enables people to converse with their contacts live at minimal cost.

Nokia to support Symbian till 2016

The users who are more concerned about third party apps will face some difficulties since app developers would be more interested in developing apps for those platforms which have longer term potential.

Finnish handset maker, Nokia will support Symbian based devices till 2016, two years more than its previous deadline.

Chief executive officer of Nokia, Stephen Elop said in an official blog, "Even as we go through a transition towards our primary smartphone platform, Windows Phone, you will see that continued investment, software updates to Symbian devices are expected until at least 2016." 

Linked In application for Symbian phones

After Android, Linked In application makes its way for phones based on Symbian operating system.

Linked In, a popular business and professional social networking website, has announced its application for smartphones based on Nokia's Symbian platform. 

The application is a compact version of the Linked In online account, which allows users to send and receive messages from their connections, add new ones, respond to invitations, browse profiles, view and compose status updates. 

The application also has a "Call Out" button on the top right hand side of the screen, which might confuse some users as there is no description available for that. But, that key allows the users to update their status messages which are automatically syndicated with their Twitter account, if that is linked to the Linked In account. 

As of now the application only has one version and is available only for Symbian S60 ^3 devices. The application is optimised for touchscreen S60 based phones only but we can expect Nokia to release other versions of this application for its s40 phones as well soon. 

No Windows Phones soon: Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson is looking to triple its market share in USA with Android phones, particularly those that run PlayStation. The new Xperia series is likely to lead growth for the company.

Sony Ericsson, which had dumped the Symbian platform, is not likely to come out with a Windows phone anytime soon, according to the company's chief technology officer Jan Uddenfeldt.

However, Uddenfeldt's words can also be interpreted to mean that Sony Ericsson's doors are still open for Windows Phone 7, though the company will start making products only if the platform picks up pace.

Sony Ericsson is looking to triple its smartphone market share in the USA, which currently stands at 5 per cent.

After Symbian, it was widely speculated that the company would go for Windows Phone 7. However, it went for Google's Android operating system and has seen reasonable success with the decision.

Five must have apps for summer vacation

These applications meant for travelers are more than just emergency tools. They will definitely help maximise your fun while you are on the move during vacations.

Traveling can be classified under two main categories: One is boring business travel, and the other is traveling for fun.

With summer vacations coming up, a lot of families and individuals will be planning their trips. Especially for these people we have a bunch of very useful and must have applications.

These applications work across all smartphone platforms including Apple, BlackBerry, Android and Symbian.

World Mate

One thing that starts way in advance of the journey is the making of a travel itinerary. Where to go; which route to follow; whether to go by car or bus or plane; where to stay — all this needs to be decided in advance. But if the itinerary is not managed well, all the effort might be in vain.

Nokia is no more No 1 in Europe

The mobile phone giant which has been losing market share for past couple of years on account of lack of smartphone success has finally been relegated to number two position in Western Europe, Samsung is the new number one.

Nokia, which ruled the mobile phone market for over a decade, has now lost its position to Samsung in Western Europe. Nokia shipments dropped 10.3 per cent year-on-year to 12.6 million units and is now the second player with 27.9 per cent market share, according to IDC's European Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report.

While, Samsung shipments increased 5.3 per cent year-on-year to 13.2 million units and the Korean giant became the biggest mobile phone maker in the region with 29.3 per cent market share. 

In the smartphone space, Apple became the biggest player with 20.8 per cent market share with its shipments increased 48.9 per cent year-on-year to 4.4 million units. Nokia comes second with 19.6 per cent market share. 

"Samsung and Apple achieved outstanding milestones this quarter in the region. Samsung became the biggest mobile phone vendor in Western Europe and Apple the biggest smartphone vendor. These results show how volatile this market is and how important it is not to underestimate the trends. Companies like Nokia (and Ericsson in the past) may have strong brands and big market shares as Nokia always had, but can be overtaken by their competitors on a blink of an eye," said Francisco Jeronimo, European mobile devices research manager, IDC.

Nokia reader gets updated

The new update to the Nokia reader updates the software making it faster and fixing the known bugs.

The Nokia OVI team has released an update for the Nokia Reader that aims to fix some bugs in it apart from bringing some improvements. 

The upgrade, that has been released on May 9, is the upgrade to Ovi Notifications Support Package (ONSP) for Symbian^3 devices. ONSP v1.1.11118 upgrade contains multiple fixes that provide improvements for Reader. The update fixes issues with the Nokia reader application on devices running Symbian^3 OS including the Nokia N8, C6-01, C7, and the newly launched E7 too. 

With this update, three major bug fixes are being provided for the Nokia Reader which include better connectivity as compared to earlier version. Besides, it has brought a solution to "sign in" issues with the Nokia Reader that needed the user to log in to the Nokia account time and again to access the service even after the details being remembered by the device. 

Also, the problem that required the software to be reinstalled has been eliminated by this update.