This week Nokia held its annual Nokia World Conference in Amsterdam, outlining its 2008 plans. The key themes in CEO and President Olli-Pekka Kallsvuo’s keynote address were; the ‘convergence of mobility and the internet’; and the need for environmental sustainability.
Ovi
Central to Nokia’s ‘vision’ of ‘convergence of mobility’, is the merging of individual services such as mobile applications and mobile internet services, into a kind of joined-up suite of integrated services.
The aim of Ovi is to link different services across mobile, online and PC platforms – for instance linking Nokia Maps to Nokia Photos, to enable people to take pictures of/at a location, share them with friends on their mobiles and online.
Ovi launched this year with Nokia Maps, Nokia Music Store and this month, N-Gage games service. Nokia Intellisyc Email was also launched as well as web communities (such as Widsets and MOSH), and app downloads via the new Nokia Download! service available on new NSeries devices.
A web portal to Ovi is being launched next year, while an on-device version is already available on the 8GB versions of the Nokia N81 and N95, with new NSeries devices getting Ovi in 2008.
Read on for more of the highlights of the 2007 Nokia World Conference….
Environmental Sustainability – the Nokia 3110 Evolve
Nokia’s boast of wanting to lead environmental sustainability in mobile was backed up by the intriguing announcement of the Nokia 3110 Evolve handset.
The 3110 Evolve has GPRS/EDGE and a 1.3-megapixel camera, with Bluetooth and stereo MP3 player and not much else, but then this isn’t supposed to be a high-end smartphone.
The 3110’s a pretty basic device, but its casing is made from bio-covers with more than 50% renewable material, with even the packaging being 60% recycled content. The charger too, has been made more environmentally friendly, using 94% less energy than the US Government’s Energy Star requirements.
Comes With Music
The most high-profile announcement was Nokia’s Comes With Music, a programme letting Nokia users get unlimited access to millions of tracks for a yearly subscription, after which they can keep their music.
Comes With Music launched with Universal Music Group, the largest of the big international record labels. From 2008, a number of Nokia smartphones – almost certainly new NSeries releases - will be shipped with one-year vouchers for access to Nokia’s Music Store.
With Vodafone and others adopting Omnifone’s Music Station, Nokia’s Comes With Music is the biggest threat yet to emerge from mobile to iTunes and the operators’ existing music download services.
Nokia Stereo Headsets - WH-700 and WH-600
Staying with music, Nokia also announced its latest two new stereo music headsets – subtly named the Nokia Stereo Headset WH-700 and Nokia Stereo Headset WH-600.
The WH-700 earphones are small enough for a comfortable fit helped by a lightweight design. Better yet it has a 3.;5mm jack for use not only on Nokia music phones but also a wide range of other mobile music players. It’ll retail from January for around €50.
The WH-600 headphones (right) have a headband and ear covers to help drown out excess noise and like the WH-700, has a 3.5mm jack adapter to fit a huge range of mobile music devices. It’s expected to cost around €50 when it’s released early next year.
Nokia Internet Radio
Another interesting new development was Nokia’s Internet Radio service which offers a step up from the basic FM tuner found on most current radio-equipped mobile phones.
The app helps you search the hundreds of internet radio stations available worldwide by language, genre, country or name. You can then create a favourites list of your preferred shows and stations.
At the time of the show, the Internet Radio app was available for download from Nokia’s website to the N82, N91, N95 and N95 8GB, with more devices coming online later. It’ll also be embedded in some upcoming Nokia S60 devices.
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