According to the recent Net Applications browser statistics, 0.09% of web usage is via Apple’s iPhone, Windows Mobile managed 0.06%, yet all Symbian Series60 devices only managed 0.01%. What’s interesting is that whilst Apple have shipped over 1 million iPhones this year, Nokia have shipped over 1 million N95s alone, but the iPhone is well ahead of all Symbian S60 devices, not just the N95.

This, I believe, is simply down to the contract - all iPhones sell with an unlimited data contract, in essence encouraging people to use their device online. Although Nokia Symbian and Windows Mobile devices have shipped with data support for many years, many network operators charge so much for data that it’s no surprise people are not using them online (or maybe only via WiFi).

Let’s hope 2008 sees more people buying unlimited data plans to other mobile phones, and we see the network operators, like O2 have done for their iPhone exclusive tariff, actually dropping fair usage limits, and making the plans truely unlimited.

What’s also amazing is that the iPhone has achieved this high level of internet usage with only GPRS/EDGE network speeds - when we see the 3G iPhone next year I suspect there will be even more pressure on the network operators to offer similar tariffs to non-iPhone customers, if only to prevent customers leaving to get the iPhone.

If you have a Symbian GPS enabled phone, and want to turn it into a Bluetooth GPS for another device to be able to use the GPS signal, then Symarctic’s ExtGPS maybe the solution. It allows the GPS signal to be accessed over Bluetooth by other devices. This is a Java application, not a Symbian specific one, so will potentially work with other phones too, but so far we’ve only seen reports of success using it on Nokia phones. Best of all, it’s also free!

This could allow you to carry a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet and a Nokia N95 phone, yet still be able to utilise the GPS from the N95 on the N800.

Photo courtesy of Symbian in Motion.

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3 SkypePhone

Apple iPod Touch (hopefully coming soon)

Apple iPhone (hopefully coming soon)

LG Viewty mobile phone

Nokia N810 (coming soon)

Nokia N95 8Gb (hopefully coming soon)

Nokia has recently released a new client for a number of it’s phones. The Nokia Internet Radio client allows you to connect to many internet radio stations, and works on a number of Nokia S60 phones (so far they have released a beta client tested on: N82, N91, N95 and N95 8Gb) over both 3G and WLAN networks. More phones should appear in time.  IN time, Nokia are planning to include the Internet Radio client in new phones (and new firmwares for existing phones).

This shows Nokia’s commitment to it’s new Ovi services, which already include the Nokia Music Store.

If you own an N95, whether the original version or the newer N95 8Gb version, you should keep an eye on the Nokia Software Updater to see if a new firmware is available for your phone (it depends on the product code of the device). Last week, Nokia released v11 for the N95 8Gb, and today released v20 for the original N95.

The N95 8Gb v11 update is mainly bug fixes, although it may well be worthwhile applying to your device.

The N95 v20 update, however, brings a number of new features to the N95 bringing it into line with the N95 8Gb. These include:

• New camera application
• Demand paging giving more free memory overall
• Search 4.0 integrated into the Standby screen
• N-Gage support
• Nokia Music Store client

It’s recommended to sync all your important information, and then apply the update, and then resync your data. Performing backup / restores is not recommended when you change firmware versions, in case some applications have changed which results in incompatibilities between the software.

Update: Symbian-Freak have listed a fairly comprehensive changelog for the v20 N95 firmware here.

At some point this week, Nokia may announce a WiFi deal linked to their OVI portal (including the Nokia Music Store). This will be aimed at the N81 and N95 8Gb phones and be seen as a response to the iPhone’s UK deal with The Cloud (which offers free WiFi access). It’s likely to be a major WiFi provider, but there is little more detail at the moment.

Of course for those who have other phones, or can’t wait there are plenty of other options for fixed rate or free WiFi.

We all know about the new N95 8Gb, which Vodafone has an exclusive on until Christmas 2007 (we’re hearing the phone will be available on 3 and Orange from the New Year - no news on the other networks yet). However, today O2 Shops got their stocks of the N95 8Gb, which is all well and good, except one little detail…

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Nokia have released the new version of the Nokia Search tool, v4.0. This is the version which ships with the N95 8Gb, but is now available for download for other S60 FP1 phones.

If you are upgrading from a previous version, Steve Litchfield notes:

You’ll have to go into App Mgr and delete EVERY instance of ‘Search’ - if your N95 is like mine, there will be several entries! After this, Search v4 will finally install

As expected, the 3 SkypePhone has a fair use policy, which is 4000 Skype minutes per month. This doesn’t sound too bad, until you remember that a normal phone, such as the N95 on 3, when purchased with a £5 X-Series Silver option, has 5000 Skype minutes per month.

Although the 3 SkypePhone is a very interesting proposition, you may be better looking at the X-Series range, albeit with a higher monthly charge (but more facilities and minutes thrown in too).

Earlier this month BT announced a joint venture with FON called BTFON. This allows BT Total Broadband users to share a little of their home broadband in return for having access to all other FON wifi spots across the world, and BT OpenZone access.

Also, McDonald’s have announced free wifi at 1200 restaurants by the end of the year. This will be provided by The Cloud, although the chargeable BT Openzone access will continue to exist.

A few points about BTFON:

• Only BT Total Broadband BTFON users get BT Openzone access - normal FON users don’t get it - sign up to Boingo / Boingo Mobile / Boingo Mobile for Nokia instead.
• FON users do get access to every BTFON wireless access point
• As a FON user, you can get paid some money for the service - this isn’t available on BTFON.
• Depending on your BT Total Broadband account type varies how much BT Openzone access you get - only Option 3 gives unlimited Openzone access.

So, sign up to FON and purchase a FON router, or sign up to BTFON and enable the FON support in your Home Hub (depending on your current ISP), and sign up to Boingo or Boingo Mobile / Boingo Mobile for Nokia (depending on your chosen mobile device), and for a minimal outlay you will have access to thousands of UK wireless hotspots with unlimited access, including, of all places, McDonald’s.

Boingo has launched Boingo Mobile for Nokia, which, for £3.95 gives your Nokia wifi-enabled phone, or Nokia Internet Tablet access to the whole Boingo wifi network (and partners). This compares to the normal Boingo worldwide unlimited option which is roughly three times as much.

The Boingo Mobile website also includes software to install to your device to support your Boingo account.

Between this and FON, maybe the idea of ubiquitous wireless is starting to happen…

I see the Boingo Mobile website already has a picture of the (launched today) N810 - nice going Boingo.

Ricky, from Symbian Guru, has posted that Google Maps has been updated for Symbian phones, and is now a dedicated Series 60 application. This boasts both GPS support, including support for internal GPS units, such as the N95, 6110 Navigator, and the E90.

Ricky also reports that one nice feature is the ability for a search result to be saved directly into a Contacts entry.

It can be downloaded from here.

Image courtesy of Symbian Guru.

Looks like the N95 8Gb will be available on Vodafone in mid-November. Although no date has yet been set for it’s confirmed appearance on 3UK, I suspect it’ll be around the same sort of date, i.e. in time for Christmas.

Whilst rumours abound as to which UK network operators will and won’t carry the N95 8Gb version, 3UK have confirmed that it is “Coming Soon”

Nokia Beta Labs have released a beta of the new version of Share Online 3.0

This adds some nice functionality from Nokia, and looks a good way to go in terms of uploading content to various websites.

Although not mentioned on the website, Nokia have confirmed to me that they plan for the final released version to support geotagging the pictures (for phones like the N95) so that once uploaded to places like Flickr they will be able to appear on the photo map. This can be done today via ShoZu, but that app isn’t particularly N95-friendly. However, it’s nice to see Nokia responded with their own apps to achieve this integration.

Not just have 3 matched T-Mobile’s Flext tariffs, but they’ve done some other interesting things. Take the N95, for example - even if you select the cheapest (£15 per month) tariff, the N95 remains free! One small point, you can only get the N95 with 120 video calling minutes, which costs £12 per month, so in essence there is an element of a payment for having a top spec phone. Even adding X-Series Silver to this results in a combined monthly cost of £32 per month, no one-off cost for the N95, and you are getting 300 minutes or texts, 120 video calling minutes, and 1Gb of data, plus a load of Skype minutes, MSN messages (both on top of the 1Gb of data). The only missing information on the 3 website is either those 120 video minutes are cross network… They are 3 to 3 only (as clearly stated in the full 3 price guide, which is another good point about 3 - try finding a full price guide for every dialling code on the other UK mobile providers’ websites…)

Compare that to T-Mobile’s cheapest tariff: On the cheapest Web’n'Walk (which doesn’t allow instant messaging), the monthly cost is £22.50, but the phone costs £220. Over the 18 months of the contract that’s £625 compared to £576 on 3.

Leave the contract running for 2 years though, and T-Mobile is £760 compared to £768, so there’s some logic in changing plan / tariff / company before 2 years is up to keep ahead financially (plus, you’ll be fed up with the limited battery life of the N95 well before then). Of course, if you want IMs, then you need to pay a higher monthly charge to T-Mobile (although it does raise the monthly data limit too), which changes the figures.

Two final points - that £22.50 from T-Mobile gets you 170 minutes or 340 texts, so if you use the phone more than you text, 3 are giving you nearly twice the number of minutes, a better data plan, and no upfront cost. Secondly, 3 will also throw in an additional 300 3 to 3 minutes per month (my partner isn’t on 3, so this is less useful to me, hence I’ve not majored on it, but it could easily swing it for others).

Coo.