LONDON UK – The Calling All Innovators competition is back and this time Nokia is looking for talented UK developers to create the next big thing in mobile applications.

The competition was announced  at Nokia’s first Ovi Developer Open Day in London on September 24th.  It is being run by the global developer program, Forum Nokia, which connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels to help build and market applications around the globe.  The aim of the contest is to challenge mobile and web application developers in the UK to create best-in-class applications that could be made available on the Ovi Store, Nokia’s one-stop-shop for applications and mobile content.

Nokia is looking for applications and content which are relevant to consumers in the UK across the following five categories:

• Social location – apps that use Ovi Maps 4 or integrate a location element to take a new or existing app to the next level
• Business and productivity – apps that help make people’s work lives easier and enable them to grow their business
• Communications and social networking – from news to social networking and IM, apps that connect people to each other and the world around them
• Games – the next big hit for all the people who love to play games while on the go
• Just for fun – apps that people simply can’t live without – nothing is too simple or off the wall to be considered

The overall winner across all five categories will have their application published on Nokia’s Ovi Store and will also walk away with £20,000 in cash, a ticket and paid travel to a Nokia developer event in the Spring 2010, Nokia’s sponsorship to become an Ovi Store publisher and one year’s membership to Forum Nokia Launchpad.

The winning application from each of the other four categories will also be published on Nokia’s Ovi Store and the developer will receive a cash prize of £2,500 plus Nokia’s sponsorship to become an Ovi Store publisher and one year’s membership to Forum Nokia Launchpad. Nokia will also review the winning applications in all categories for possible preload on future Nokia devices.

Rupert Englander at Nokia comments, “We are looking for bold ideas from talented developers who can demonstrate a real understanding of what UK consumers want from mobile content”.

“The range of categories reflects our ambition to develop mobile technology which helps consumers to manage their busy lives and to share and communicate with friends and family more easily”.

“While we are looking for apps that help personal productivity we also want ideas that are fun and entertaining. Creating fresh ideas for applications is key in the fast-paced mobile content market and UK developers play a major role in driving forward innovation. This competition is not just about nurturing talent but also offering the UK developer community access to an unrivalled network of consumers through our Ovi Store channel.”

Submissions for the contest will be accepted until 30 November 2009 and the winners of Calling All Innovators UK will be announced by 31 December.

More information is available at http://www.callingallinnovators.com/uk

Looks like a great competition so get coding!

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It has become so popular that the event has moved venues 3 times – and it is now going to be held at the Wieden + Kennedy Innovation Centre, 16 Hanbury Street London E1 6QR.

Developers, bloggers and other content creators can learn about Ovi Store opportunities at a developer open day sponsored by Forum Nokia and Nokia U.K. in London on 24 September, at 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For both U.K. developers and those in town for the Over the Air event on 25-26 September, the Ovi day will be a perfect opportunity to meet informally with the Forum Nokia and Nokia U.K. teams. Attendees will also learn about Ovi Store opportunities; the Calling All Innovators contest; Open Screen Project (a $10 million grant program for developers); and Forum Nokia tools, developer programs, support and other offerings.

Venue: Note! Location of the event has been changed. The new address is

Wieden + Kennedy Innovation Centre
16 Hanbury Street
London E1 6QR – Google map

Nearest tube: Liverpool Street
Event website: http://lc.tl/ovilondon

Agenda:

11:00   Registration and coffee

11:30   Developing for Ovi Store – Benjamin Roszczewski, Business Development Manager, Forum Nokia

12:00   Market overview and opportunities with Nokia UK  – Mark Loughran, General Manager, Nokia UK & Ireland and Rupert Englander, Head of GTM Nokia Services, Nokia

12:45   Lunch

13:30   Meet the Calling All Innovators finalists and announcements – Janaina Pilomia, EMEA Product Marketing Manager, Forum Nokia

14:00   Ovi Apps and SDK introduction – Martin Ramsin, Senior Manager Total Experience Management, Maps Ecosystem, Nokia

14:30   $10 Million fund for Flash mobile development – Open Screen Project – Janaina Pilomia, EMEA Product Marketing Manager, Forum Nokia

15:00   Summary, wrap-up

16:00   End of the event

Secure your seat and register today!

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What better way to promote the offer and solicit worthy recipients than on twitter!  When I posted the offer on Monday, my blog also automatically sent an update to twitter.

The entries received via twitter and considered were

Branedy@AndrewGrill I could use the N97 to further build @querynet, @ideaforecasting or @fleetthoughts come see!

ianhomer@AndrewGrill #lc – we’ll be showing how to easily deliver #wrt widgets @ our workshop @ #ota09. N97 would come in handy (or in pocket).

benmtwt@andrewgrill #lc Janaina’s gift cld make zijit’s 1st wgt a wgz, homescreenified the Nokia way. Abt 1 week from demoable alpha on Smsng i8910.

markobrockman@andrewgrill I created a simple strategy game on S60 2nd, porting it to the 5th. Probably going to Ovi Store. http://twitpic.com/d0sxe #lc

3gdoctor@andrewgrill I’m building an app for patients who have suffered a stoke. Requires a connected game environment + touch. N97 would be top #lc

buddycloud@andrewgrill N97 would help @incrediblepants develop our home screen widget for buddycloud. Screenshot: http://yfrog.com/endl8j #lc

Summeli@AndrewGrill #lc I need a N97 to make 5th edition version of my snes9x emulator port. See the concept at http://www.summeli.fi/?p=842

After careful review of  all the submissions, I have chosen to award the N97 to David Doherty of 3G Doctor – congratulations!

David also explained that he is “..building an application for patients who have suffered a stoke, and it requires a connected game environment + touch.  The N97 has the exact specification needed and we have developed on Symbian before.  The application would be used for monitoring patients who have suffered a stroke and would be helpful for medication compliance and aid feedback.”

Sounds like a great use for the N97 and so I am happy to name you the worthy winner.

David is now in touch with me, and even managed a blog post on his win.  The N97 will be on its way soon.

Thanks also to everyone else who put their submission forward, all were worthy winners and I wish you all success with your applications.

Thank you also to Nokia for providing the N97 for the developer community to use, and continuing to show their support for the developer community in a direct and meaningful way.

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This post has just been featured at WOM World/Nokia.

Just over a week ago I took delivery of a shiny new Nokia E71.  Those who have been following London Calling lately will know that I have been waiting excitedly for the E71 to be released, having been an early adopter of both the E61 and E61i.

After a week of heavy, normal mobile usage, I am still impressed with my purchase.

First thoughts

The keyboard, while small is a joy to use.  Having previously owned an E61 and E61i, I know that one handed typing was pretty much impossible – but with the E71, you can type sentences that include Z and P (furthest apart on the keyboard) one handed.  The  E61 was always a 2 handed affair when typing complex emails.  When I use the E61i now, it feels incredibly wide and heavy compared to the E71.

The E71 also “feels” right.  It is incredibly light and thin, but has a solid feel about it if that can be imagined by the reader. It is so thin that when you hold it, it feels like the back has been sliced off it.  Considering that the bulk of the volume is a BP-4L battery (the same one used in the E61i), it is remarkable how thin the device really is.

The keyboard, while much smaller than the E61i feels much better and has the best action of any handsets I have owned.

The screen, while physically smaller than the E61i provides a crisp view and is more than up to the task.

What did I load?

One of the first tasks when setting up a new phone is to load all of my favourite productivity software to make life even easier. Listed below are my “must haves” on any new symbian phone, together with links direct to the software publishers.

Psiloc Connect – given Nokia still haven’t got connection groups right, you need this software to provide seamless switching between WiFi and 3G.  The way this great piece of software works is to constantly monitor pre-configured WiFi access points (such as home of office access points you have already set up) and provide a single connection name you can have as the default in all programs.  Connect automatically switches between WiFi and 3G.

Shozu – this is an amazing piece of software and allows you to easily upload photos to flickr (and a host of other sites) straight from the phone – without doing anything.  Shozu also supports geotagging so the pictures are uploaded pre-tagged with GPS co-ordinates.

Handy taskman – you will need this to enable you to quickly check which programs are running, and kill applications not needed.

Google Mobile Maps – a no brainer here.  With HSDPA and GPS on board there is no excuse not to have this as one of your applications accessed from the home screen.

Screenshot – a neat application for taking screenshots of the E71 in action.

Transferring software from the E61i to the E71

In moving my favourite software from my E61i to the E71, I had to once again contend with the fact that most Symbian software these days is IMEI locked – so can only be used on one nominated device (to get your IMEI number simply enter *#06# on any handset). This meant installing trial versions of the software and contacting the software publishers one by one to request a new code with my new IMEI.  In all but one case, I received the code within 24 hours. One publisher had incorrectly listed my previous code and so thought my subscription had expired.  Forwarding the purchase email seemed to solve this.
 

Things I like about the E71

There are a number of significant improvements over the E61i that make the E71 a real joy to use – and in some cases more powerful than previous models – and I have provided a summary here.

Increased system RAM – the E71 now has enough memory for multiple applications so I can run all of the things I need without having to selectively close them to make the phone work. This is a real plus – and something Nokia needs to implement with all new phones as users download more and more utility software in this user generated content world.

GPS – finally my main phone has GPS and I don’t need to carry 2 phones.  I have found though that the accuracy of the GPS chip in the E71 is not as good as say the Nokia 6110 navigator – a dead giveaway is when using Google mobile maps and walking on a road – the 6110 would follow the road perfectly but the E71 puts you in between streets.  Perhaps a firmware upgrade will fix this.

Keyboard - one handed typing is now possible – a really key requirement for a road warrior such as myself wanting to quickly respond to clients while walking the streets of London.

Camera – a reasonable improvement over the E61i (from 2MP to 3.2MP on the E71) and it also has an autofocus feature – yay!

HSDPA – running at 3.2Mb/s gives a very usable web experience.  Upload is however capped at 384kb/s as it is not HSUPA enabled – and I hope that the internal radio can be upgraded to 7.2Mb/s HSDPA and 1.2MB/s HSUPA but I’ll bet this has to wait for the E71i.

D-pad joystick – when the E61 joystick changed to a D-pad on the E61i I wasn’t sure what to think.  The E71 D-pad is a dream to use.  The centre button also doubles as the flashing white email/message indicator light.
 

Things that need improvement

The E71 is not perfect – and a few things need improvement. Some may be possible in firmware, and some will have to wait for the Nokia E71i (going by the E61 > E61i precedent, I’d bet we will see an E71i in the next 10 months or so). 

Nokia PR – please feel free to send me one to review!

Thigs I don’t like

Not having commonly used symbols such as £,$ and ( ) on the keyboard accessible by the function key is a REAL PAIN. Instead you have to hit the char key and scroll to the correct symbol.  Perhaps this is due to the small size of the keyboard and issues with printing legible symbols on top of small keys. 

Another pain is that the control key needs to be accessed by hitting fn-chr so a simple control-c for cut and pasting is a real pain – this will become annoying as my usage increases.
 

Summary 

The E71 is definitely a “buy” recommendation from me, and has all of the things I need in a business phone. 

The E71 will be truly complete when the Goodlink keyboard issue is solved by Motorola Good Technology – hopefully this will be soon. Read this official Good forum and the groundswell of support that started on this blog is being echoed on this blog.  Hopefully the techies at Good are beavering away on a fix.

Note: I have not been paid for this review or been provided any handsets to review.  I bought my E61, E61i and E71 handsets myself and paid full price – these are not operator versions but unlocked, generic models sourced from online stores in the UK.

I have been a Nokia fan since my first Nokia 1100 (AMPS model on the Optus network) in 1994 and owned more than 12 Nokia phones since then.
 

Updates

I will update this post as I use the device more and add any comments relevant to people considering upgrading to an E71.

Please feel free to add your own E71 experiences below.

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UPDATE: 2 March 2009 – Visto Acquires Good
Message to Visto folks – I know your product set well but the Good mobile messaging product is sensational. Please promise to keep innovating the Good suite – it is the closest thing to mobile mail nirvana I have ever seen.  When I could not get Good for my E71, I had to turn to Visto – there is no comparison so please keep investing in the Good product and team.

UPDATE: 10 December 2008
Good Mobile Messaging has announced that the Nokia E71 is now compatible with Good Mobile messaging.  I now have Good working on my E71 in London via Fasthosts hosted exchange.

Some quick tips for you to get the best experience and ensure a smooth ride.

• Make sure your IT Manager/Admin or hosted exchange provider has upgraded their Good server to the latest version. Your GMM server needs to be running Good 5.0 SR1 (Exchange Server 5.0.3.19 Domino Server 5.0.3.18) or Good 5.0 SR2 (Exchange Server 5.0.4.28 Domino Server 5.0.4.27)
• Ask your IT Manager/Admin or hosted exchange provider to make available GMM 5.1.0.37 (the latest version) for your handset to download via the OTA site at http://get.good.com (access this from your handset)
• One trap for users – once installed and running for a while, the new version may ask for a lock code – the default is 12345.  See the release notes on this.  There seems to be a small issue here and hopefully the GMM product team can remove the issue where GMM automatically locks the phone after just 20 minutes and the user cannot increase this phone lock timeout

Once downloaded and installed, GMM magically starts to work on the E71!

I will post a longer review of the experience of GMM on the E71 after a few more days of use, but I still maintain that Good Mobile Messaging on an E71 is the ultimate mobile email experience – full stop.  Forget Blackberry – Good rocks!

See the official announcement about Good on the E71 at the Be Good portal.

Blogging works! Thanks to the 7000+ readers of this post we convinced Motorola Good to ensure the E71 is supported, and thanks to the team at Good – especially Rona Orenstein and Kitt Gilbert Scott who also took up the case with Fasthosts here in the UK to get them to upgrade their server to support this new release.

UPDATE: November 29 2008

I thought it would be worth an update on this post, as it receives a fair number of hits every day so many others must also be hanging out for the E71 + Goodlink fix.

I’ve been testing version 5.1.0.24 on my E71 and E61i.  The good news is that it works on both devices!  The keyboard issue with the E71 and version 4.9.3.34 has been fixed, and with version 5 there are some nice new features.

The bad news is that it’s not quite there yet (5.1 is still in Beta).  I managed to get GMM 5.1.0.24 downloaded OTA when I went to get.good.com and entered my Fasthosts email credentials, and everything was going fine but I noticed that not all of my 7,200 outlook contacts had been downloaded.

According to the super support team at Motorola Good, I have the “power-user performance issue” – lucky me, but this will be fixed in the final release.

When I ran the new 5.1 client on the E71 on a Goodlink test account (with only 1 contact), it worked perfectly.

I can’t wait for the final release, and to have my E71 humming along with GMM 5 – it is worth the wait.

October update: Blogging works!  After reading the post below about how Fasthosts were the ones in the slow lane, I hear that after Fasthosts read my post below, they decided to act – fantastic.

Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long to upgrade their Good server in the UK so I can trial the new GMM symbian version 5.1 beta that is currently being tested by a group of GMM users.

As per the many comments below, Jerry Tian has developed a workaround for the E71 (basically he has modified Antony Paranata’s excellent screenshot program to provide the keyboard mapping that the E71 is lacking when used with Goodlink) which is described in more detail on the Good forum.

Thanks to Jerry signing his version with my IMEI, I have now started using Goodlink with the E71.  The fix gives you about 80% of the functionality I had with GMM for the E61i, but this is enough to keep me mobile – thanks Jerry! Let’s hope that the GMM 5.0 beta to be released soon brings full goodlink functionality back to the E71.

LATEST UPDATE FROM GOOD: Beta fix due September, official release of Good 5 for Symbian in December. Info direct from the Be Good portal.

All,

There have been several questions on the possibility of GMM support on Nokia E71 recently.

I wanted to send out a quick update to let you know that Good Mobile Messaging will be supported on the Nokia E71 as part of the next Good Symbian release.

There are several engineering challenges with this device because some critical integration modules we need for our application to function are not available on the E71. We now have a plan to work around those.

The official release date is December 2008. We will have a limited Beta program starting in the last week of September.
If you are a customer interested in joining the Beta program please contact your sales engineer or technical support person.

Regards,
Reena Nadkarni | Group Product Manager | Motorola Good Technology Group

So…it is not long now. Thanks to all the London Calling readers for contributing here and also on the good portal – it seems to have had the desired effect.

From what I know of Good version 5, it has some great new features – so when available on Symbian, the Nokia Good experience will be exceptional.

I’ve been invited to join the beta program for Good Symbian so if I am able, I will report my experiences shortly. Thanks again to the London Calling readers for raising this as an important issue, and proving there are thousands of Good users out there who want to deploy the solution on the new Nokia E71.

UPDATE 1: Since the original post on July 4th, I have had almost 1000 2200 views and multiple emails on the subject. It looks like the new Nokia E71 users craving for their Goodlink mobile email fix are being held back by a bug where Goodlink does not recognise the Nokia E71 keyboard properly – which makes it a bit hard to send email! Good claim a fix is on the way – but let’s hope for all the Nokia E71 Goodlink users that this fix is accelerated and released ASAP.

UPDATE 2: I posted an entry on the Good forum, and received a response from Dan Rudolph, Director of Marketing for Motorola Good Technology Group – his response from the forum is quoted verbatim below:

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