We’re incredibly happy to announce that we’re adding another member to the Smartphone Experts family of sites: Nokia Experts!  Nokia Experts will be run by the inestimable Matt Miller, also known as The Mobile Gadgeteer, host of ZDNet’s Smartphones and Cellphones blog, palmsolo, and all around mobility guru.

Matt has a ton of knowledge about a subject that the rest of us at Smartphone Experts have historically lacked, namely Nokia, S60, and the Symbian OS in general.  He gives himself a brief introduction here, in the unlikely event you’re not familiar.

Nokia has, as yet, not successfully made a big smartphone push in the United States, but that’s quite likely to change as they have a slew of exciting new devices coming out and are also likely to have their E71 messaging smartphone picked up by AT&T very soon.  In other words, if, like us, you’re relatively new to Nokia and S60 but want to learn more, Nokia Experts is surely going to be one of your best resources.  Heck, Matt’s already published a full review of the Nokia 5800 Tube XpressMusic touch screen S60 device.  The ‘Tube’ is already a best-selling device overseas and is more of a worthy contender than you might think, so the review is definitely worth a read.

Go on and head over to Nokia Experts now and give ‘em a big ol’ hello!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Welcome Nokia Experts to the Family!

At the TechCrunch Mobile Web Wars event (basically a Silicon Valley roundtable discussion), the topic of conversation often turned towards, you guessed it, your favorite gadget, the iPhone. Many Execs were claiming that the traffic generated by the iPhone is extraordinary and the amount of apps downloaded in a matter of weeks are jaw-dropping.

Here are the notable facts and figures:

• Pandora has been available for 18 months in other mobile platforms which resulted in 12,000 monthly subscriptions to the service. In 6 days with the iPhone…350,000 installs on the iPhone.
• And before you cry foul because of the paid vs free debate, Pandora says that the App Store lets the company make money through ads whereas on other devices they were forced into a subscription method.
• 1 million Facebook users downloaded the Facebook App
• Average iPhone user is 47 times as active on Loopt as those on other phones

Right now the iPhone does. And everyone else doesn’t. Zing.

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Mobile Executives Say the iPhone = GOOOD

Nokia dominates the planet when it comes not only to cellphones, but also to Smartphones. But the upcoming iPhone Risk-style onslaught (not to mention the pending release of Android, though delayed) looks to have them a little worried. So they’re finally getting their Symbian ducks in a row: enough of trying to work together with other companies like Sony and Motorola, they’ve purchased the entire OS shootin’ match and are unifying the platform. Simple explanation: Symbian is the base OS, then there are different interfaces on top of that: S60 and UIQ. We’re not fond of either, but between the two of them S60 seems to be the one with more legs (and more support, it’s Nokia’s interface of choice).

Update: we’ve got more to say here, so make the jump for the analysis.

UIQ is getting folded in to the platform now, basically, and the Symbian foundation is shoring up its base with input from the major players (but Symbian Limited is to be owned by Nokia). What’s more, the platform will be offered for free instead of for a small fee and will even eventually be made ‘open source’ so people can much around with the nasty bits of the code. So basically Nokia is buying it so they can give it away. Confused yet? It’s alright — the bottom line is that in coming years Symbian development will continue apace and now has a decent chance of catching up with the iPhone’s UI elegance. Well, a chance anyway. Interesting that Nokia is betting on a combination of Android-style openness and Apple-style unified look-and-feel.

In case you’re thinking this is a yawner, it’s not. See, the Symbian folks are pumped:

The list of partners who have already committed to the Symbian Foundation is pretty earth-shattering, as well, including AT&T, NTT Docomo, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone in terms of carriers. Handset manufacturers who’ve signed up include LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Tech leaders such as Broadcom, Fujitsu, Texas Instruments, and WiPro are also on board. This is an army, more or less.
This is a massive step for the mobile and open source communities, and a big deafening blow to mobile Linux and more importantly – Android. Essentially, the Symbian Foundation is what Google intended Android to be, only it’s already millions of devices strong. The ecosystem is already built, and thriving.

We agree, the target here is Android (and a little Windows Mobile on the side), but that doesn’t mean that the iPhone won’t take some collateral damage. See, the whole point of the is-it-isn’t-it-really iPhone price drop was for them to pick up massive market share so their developer ecosystem could gain a foothold worldwide. If Nokia can get Symbian unified and moving foward quickly, that gambit isn’t going to work so well (outside the US, anyway). Heck, even if Nokia can’t, they’re still by far the dominant player in the industry. Apple really has its work cut out if they want to become synonymous with “smartphone” across the world. Synonymous with smartphone right now: Nokia.

Will Apple sell a ton of iPhones? Yes. However they’re facing as big a beast here in smartphones now as they do on the desktop. Although we don’t think the iPhone will sit around 10% marketshare like the Mac does, we’re not going to hold our breath for more than 30% worldwide marketshare. I’m not, anyway.

The loser here? Could be Motorola. It’s not enough that they’ve lost all their RAZR lovers to the iPhone, but rumor has it the forlorn company is set to make a “last stand” smartphone that was originally supposed to feature, wait-for-it, the soon-to-be-defunct UIQ. Looks like they’ll be reworking that there plan, eh?

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This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Nokia Unifies Symbian, Sets it Free