S60 Open to new features

I sat down with Michal Jerz of My-Symbian.com during the S60 Summit to discuss the long history of My-Symbian.com, the long history of the Communicators, the new E90 Communicator, the future of My-Symbian.com, and a lot about himself.

My-Symbian.com is probably the oldest Symbian site out there, definitely the longest running Communicator site on the internet. Michal is a very interesting guy and this was a gem of an interview. Enjoy!!

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (23:25 - 10.9 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (23:25 - 4.1 MB)

This past Wednesday,S60 announced their latest Feature Pack to S60 3rd Edition. Today I met with Mikko Röntynen, Head of S60 Platform Marketing at Nokia, to discuss this latest release.

We went over the new visual effects of the release, new simplifications, new tools for developers, new features for operators, and answered many of the questions you had for him. Enjoy!!

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (14:07 - 6.6 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (14:07 - 2.4 MB)

Mikko Röntynen has a background within the international IT/mobile industry for over 15 years. He is currently working in Nokia Mobile Software Sales and Marketing unit, as the head of marketing team for the S60 smartphone platform. Prior to joining Nokia, Mikko worked as a senior product manager in First Hop, being responsible for the mobile messaging product line. He has previously held various consultant, product management and product marketing positions at companies such as Teamware Group (Fujitsu) and ICL. Mikko Röntynen holds a MSc (Technology) degree from Helsinki University of Technology.

Saila Laitinen is Senior Consultancy Manager for Forum Nokia. She's got a new book coming out on Wiley entitled, "S60 Smartphone Quality Assurance" geared towards developers, licensees, operators, and other members of the S60 ecosystem who wants to get "the big picture" of S60. She met with me this past week to discuss her new book, the S60 ecosystem, and S60 quality assurance... Enjoy!

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (9:00 - 4.2 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (9:00 - 1.5 MB)

Saila Laitinen joined Nokia year 1995 and she has worked in variety of positions and organizations within the company since then. She started as a master’s thesis worker in Nokia Networks and worked as a software engineer for three years, which sets up good grounds on having an overall understanding on software nature, development challenges as well as network technologies. During those three years she also worked as a project manager in a couple of software projects. This provided her primary understanding and know-how on how challenging it is to run the project both in budget and within given schedule.

After networks Saila joined Nokia Ventures Organisation to lead the testing activities in one venture. Then she gained international experience and worked in Nokia Hungary as an expatriate. In Hungary her responsibility was to manage the overall testing activities of Nokia’s very first presence server-product. After Hungary she moved back to Finland and joined the S60 product line, where she was leading the testing, triage and technical consultancy teams. These teams worked in a daily basis in the wind of S60 customer products and provided them the platform expertise in different technologies and activities. Lastly Saila joined Forum Nokia where she currently leads the global consultancy function to serve the biggest developer community innovating on top of Nokia platforms.

Working in all these organizations and both in the home base and abroad has given her very clear inside on mobile technologies and multi-cultural differences. Her several years experience nearby the S60 customer programs has given her the first hand knowledge needed in writing this book.

I met with Tommi Vilkamo this morning for a very nice interview. For those who don't know, he's host of Tommi's S60 Application Blog. We discussed his blog, S60 applications, himself, and answered a lot of great questions submitted by his readers. Enjoy! Here's the podcast...

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (24:03 - 11.2 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (24:03 - 4.2 MB)

"Tommi Vilkamo works as a Technology and Business Analyst in a Nokia unit that develops built-in applications for Nokia's S60 based devices. As part of his work, he follows actively what is happening in the S60 ecosystem, in the mobile industry, and in the Internet world. Since November 2005, he has been writing an S60 blog, that is probably the most widely-read Nokia blog out there."

Ganesh Sivaraman from the Web Browser for S60 team is back on the Voice of S60 to tell us all about the new version of the browser which will be found on all upcoming S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 devices like the Nokia N95, Samsung SGH-i520 and the LG JoY. We talk about the response for the browser so far, all the new features, and some things we'll see in the future. Check out their new blog for more info.

And here's the podcast!

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (16:15 - 7.5 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (16:15 - 2.8 MB)

"Ganesh has been working in the mobile industry for over 6 years as Technology Consultant, Nokia's delegate in OMA standardization and S60 Application Manager. Recently, he joined the S60 browser team to promote the new & exciting Web Browser for S60. He believes that the entire mobile industry is renewing the strategy & offering for Internet related services & Web browser plays a major role here. Look out for innovative & exciting solutions in 2006 & 2007 as the industry gears up towards Web technology based mobile services."

This week I was joined by Risto Helin of Nokia to discuss Symbian Signed - What Symbian Signed means to the developers, what it means to the consumers, how does one get their application Symbian Signed, what processes the test houses do when they verify an application.

Getting your app Symbian Signed may seem like a lengthy, complicated and costly process...but it's the complete opposite! Listen to the podcast for the interview...

Download in MP3 64kbps Format | (17:19 - 8.1 MB)
Download in AAC+ 24kbps Format | (17:19 - 3.0 MB)

Risto Helin works at Nokia in the Forum Nokia Technical Services and Consultancy organization as Manager of the Application Testing Services. Risto has been with Nokia for over eleven years, out of which he has been engaged in developer activities in the past nine.

In his current role, Risto represents Nokia in the industry wide testing and signing processes Symbian Signed and Java Verified. He has been involved in these programs from the very inception. Prior to Java Verified and Symbian Signed he was involved in the developer support and Nokia's testing and signing process development.

Risto holds a degree of Bachelor in Engineering.

This week I'll be joined by Larri Vermola. He is product manager for the new "Pro Session Golf" application for the Nokia N93 camcorder phone. We'll be talking about this new app as well as the new technology it utilizes.

Name: Larri Vermola
Profession: Product Manager, Pro Session Golf
Site: www.nokia.com/golf

"Larry Vermola has been with Nokia since 2001. He is currently responsible for the user experience of two first Sports and Wellness, SWELL, products. Before SWELL he was Concept Manager for Mobile TV and DVB-H, until those activities were moved to the Multimedia and Technology Platform units of Nokia."

This week we'll be chatting with Debi Jones, mobile product manager and strategist, analyst, and social media producer based out of San Diego, California...

"She writes, speaks, and consults on innovative ways to combine mobility, web and social media to create applications and services that drive awareness and adoption. Previously having held senior marketing and engineering positions at Netscape, Sendmail, Palm and Microsoft, she consults with companies focused on mobile media and mobile community.

Also known as mobile jones, Debi writes a creative eponymous blog about mobile and wireless technology in addition to being the executive producer of Media Slaves. She has been highlighted for her work in mobile applications and services by Business Week, Boing Boing, Nokia's S60 Blogs, and Mobhappy's best mobile writing of 2005 among others.

She has also lectured at the University of San Francisco on the "Wireless Universe: Standards and Technologies," spoken at a variety of conferences and gatherings inlcuding leading the Mobile Monday San Diego Chapter."

Name: Debi Jones
Profession: Mobile product manager and strategist, analyst, and social media producer
Site: www.mobilejones.com
Podcast: Media-Slaves

If you have any questions for Debi, we'd love to hear from you! Leave your questions in the comments section or e-mail us at: voiceofs60 >AT> s60.com

Check back in next Wednesday when I'll be interviewing Vesa Tiihonen, a senior software engineer and head of Symbian development at Secure Digital Container AG in Switzerland. We'll be discussing DRM on S60 and developing 3rd Edition applications....

Name: Vesa Tiihonen
Profession: Senior Software Engineer, Head of Symbian Development
Company: Secure Digital Container AG
Site: www.digitcont.com

I promised a new podcast every two weeks and already at episode #5 I broke my promise. But I've been away on (a much needed) month-long holiday, so maybe I have a good excuse? :-)

Be sure to listen to my interview with Elice Enstedt of Idean Research who work as S60's usability experts...

Name: Elice Enstedt
Profession: Interaction Solutions Manager
Company: Idean Research
Site: www.ideanresearch.com

"Elice Enstedt is the Interaction Solutions Manager with Idean Creative, a part of one of the leading user experience companies in Europe, Idean Research Ltd. Her work is centred around creating innovative and efficient user interface design processes and practices. Elice has just recently joined Idean Creative after 9 years of working for Nokia in various positions. Her latest position at Nokia was (User Experience) Design Manager for S60 organization.

Elice was born and raised in Finland, and attended university in Tampere, obtaining her Master of Philosophy degree in 1999. Elice enjoys various sports ranging from aerobics to scuba diving and loves to read fiction."