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Author Archive for Payam Dastmalchi

By Payam Dastmalchi on August 06th, 2009

Welcome to OviApplications, Yash!

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Today, I would like to welcome Yash Maheshwari or better known as alsiladka to many of you on Twitter as a writer to Oviapplications. Yash was one of the first people to reach out to me and help me with posts and application reviews and I am pleased to have him on board.

Yash is currently studying Law at Symbiosis International University in Pune and has also completed a diploma in Cyber Law along with his studies. Currently, he is also doing a certification course on Cyber Crime Investigation. He is not new to the Symbian S60 platform having started using S60 phones with Nokia 3250, followed by N73 and presently using the N85. He has a passion for trying out new technologies and applications and has been involved in Beta testing for several highly profile applications from various developers. He was also just recently named as Nokia Beta Labs Contributer of the month.

Yash will focus on in-depth, hands on reviews of Symbian applications and other related news and commentaries. He can be contacted at Alsiladka [at] oviapplications.com.

Welcome,Yash!

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By Payam Dastmalchi on August 05th, 2009

Is your smartphone one of the top selling phones in Q2?

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The research firm IDC has compiled a preliminary list of the top-selling smart phones in the United States in the second quarter and the list seems to be accurate with what we say in general public.

You need to realize that this list ONLY counts vendor sales to carriers and channels rather than direct sales to end users and that these numbers will be finalized by IDC at the end of this month.

Here is the top 10 smart phones in the US in Q2:

10- HTC Toch Diamond – CDMA offered by Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless

9- HTC Touch Pro – CDMA & GSM offered by Sprint, Verizon, AT&T

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By Payam Dastmalchi on August 01st, 2009

Interview with Antti Lammi of RaceChrono

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I recently interviewd Antti Lammi, Founder and Owner of RaceChrono. This is an exciting interview as Antti shares his experinces developing the application and future product roadmap.

1. First, tell me a bit about your company. How long have you been in business? How did you get started in it?

I started writing the RaceChrono software in early 2007. This was just for hobby without much ambition. After some months me and my friend realized there could be business potential, so we founded RaceChrono Oy in early 2008. RaceChrono Oy is currently a small start-up owned and financed by its founders.

2. Talk about RaceChrono and what does it exactly do?

RaceChrono is a GPS based lap timing software. The software gives the user immediate feedback of laps and to provide a way to analyze the laps without transferring any data to a computer. The software is particularly aimed towards recording and analyzing laps in motor sports, but it has also a lot of users for example in down hill skiing, bicycling and horse racing.

RaceChrono is currently available for Symbian (S60 2nd, 3rd and 5th editions) and Windows Mobile phones. We have also plan on doing Windows CE version very soon. Currently we are thinking of Android and Maemo platforms too, but not considering iPhone platform right now as it does not support connections to standard Bluetooth GPS receivers.

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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 29th, 2009

ShoZu changes its business model; comes to Ovi store

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ShoZu, the social media hub, has today announced its availability from the Ovi store. The award wining photo sharing site allows consumer to enjoy one-click uploading of camera phone photos and videos to a growing list of over two dozen of today’s most popular web destinations including Flickr, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

The interesting thing about this announcement is that ShoZu which was previously available for S60 device owners for free, now has a one-time charge to new users downloading the application from the Ovi store. The charge does not affect any of the existing users but new users have to pay to play! ShoZu’s new strategy reflects the company’s decision not to sell advertising in order to support expanding demand for its service.

The ShoZu app for the OVI Store provides two-way interactivity with dozens of social networking sites, including real-time status updates and uploading high-resolution images and video. Other benefits include: uploading via Wi-Fi (for devices supporting Wi-Fi) for free and fast service; automatically continuing uploads in the event of service disruptions; and reducing download size to save users money if their data plan isn’t unlimited.

Users may download ShoZu’s mobile social media hub application for a one-off fee of €7 for the life of the Nokia handset, in line with Nokia’s commercial arrangement with content providers for the OVI Store. For those Symbian Series 60 users already using the application, ShoZu recommends they backup the application when they reset their device’s firmware so they don’t incur a fee to download the service again.

The service is initially available on all Series 60 Version 3 devices and the Nokia 5800 with support for the N97 device coming soon. A complete, frequently updated list of supported handset models is available at www.shozu.com and m.shozu.com.

The ShoZu mobile client is part of the ShoZu social media hub service. The ShoZu social media hub service is free for both existing and new users through picture messaging/(MMS), mobile e-mail, desktop e-mail and ShoZu Desktop, based on the Adobe Air platform, that works on both Macs and Windows PCs.

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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 29th, 2009

Review: Best Expense by Smartphoneware

expense60_3_main-192x192_ If you travel frequently and are looking for an intuitive and simple application to keep track of your expenses, you’ll probably find the Best Expense handy.

Installation:

Best Expense is a paid application and can be downloaded from the Ovi store for $1.99. The current version 1.01 is 0.133MB and is available for s60 3rd and 5th edition devices in English and Russian language. There is no requirement for account registration.

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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 29th, 2009

Interview with Asif Ali of ZestADZ

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Mobile Advertising industry has always been of great interest to me and I’ve followed the trend closely. According to a recent report by Juniper Research, Mobile Advertising will reach $5.7bn by 2014. It is obvious that many advertisers are starting to use this medium to reach consumers but there have been questions as whether application developers can make significant revenue from displaying ads within their apps. To find out more about the state of the industry and learn about avilable programs to Symbian Developers, I interviewed Asif Ali President and Co-Founder of ZestADZ, a leading performance based mobile marketing platform.

  • First, tell me a bit about your company? How long you’ve been in the business? Private or VC funded?

Mobile-worx is a leading mobile marketing firm. We run ZestADZ – A Leading Performance based mobile ad network with strong presence globally. We currently serve more than 500m ads per month. We’re a privately funded company and in business for more about 3 years now and of that about 2 years in the Ad network business.

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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 27th, 2009

Screenshots of Flashion Theme by ustwo

If you’ve been looking for a theme that stands out and is “cool” and “refreshing”, then I suggest you download the Flashion Theme from the Ovi store. The theme which is designed by ustwo studio is 0.035 MB to download and will cost you $1.99 which is cheaper than most of the other themes out there.
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More about ustwo studio:
ustwo studio which sells itself as the “studio of dreams”, is a creative design agency based out of London. They specialize in graphical user interface designs and create digital contents for mobile, TV and the web. In a brief email conversation with Matt Pollitt ( Twitter @mattpolls) , Mobile UI designer for ustwo, he stats they “have spent the last 4 years or so making GUI for one of the major handset manufactures, as well as our own projects over a number of different platforms , as well as consumer electronics“.
ustwo currently has another themes available in the Ovi store (search for Grid theme) and plan to release the third theme labeled “Cosmos” soon.
Themes
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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 24th, 2009

Review : Netflix for Nokia

Netflix is a popular movie service where users can create a list of movies they want to watch, which are then mailed one at a time. Netflix has also released some new enhancements to its service including the ability to stream movies online and watch them on a PC.

I am not going to lie but after four years of being an avid user of Netflix, I cancelled my membership earlier this year. It was one of those decisions that I had to make since I wasn’t spending a lot of time at home and I also became a Boxee junkie so I figured I will break up with my Netflix. That decision only lasted about few months and as soon as the Netflix for Nokia app was released last month, I went right back and restored my account. Fortunately, this is a great app that helps you to view, update and add movies to your queue right from your phone.

Installation:

Netflix for Nokia is listed under the Entertainment category in the Ovi store and the download file is only 185MB. Once the application is downloaded, you will need to input your account credentials and it will then sync up with the Netflix servers and display your queue.

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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 23rd, 2009

Review : Tech Buzz Widget

Earlier during the initial launch phases of the Ovi store, I mentioned the need for a simple RSS and content management app for Symbian based phones. Immediately I was contacted by few developers who all had great RSS apps to showcase but none of them were exactly what I was looking for.

Enter Tech Buzz Widget from Mippin.

Although Tech Buzz is not exactly an RSS reader, per se, but it does a great job of delivering the latest news right to your phone. Mippin which advertises itself as “the fastest and easiest way to get your favorite web content on your mobile phone” has created several other similar news widgets including the all popular The Guardian widget for Ovi. They’ve kind of mastered this whole widgetin’ thing.

News & Info
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By Payam Dastmalchi on July 23rd, 2009

Exclusive look at the upcoming Shi theme from Tehk7

I woke up this morning to a new theme in my inbox by Tehkseven and I was excited to have it installed on my phone. The new theme which is titled “Shi” encompasses a concept of darkness and distortion. The dark red color used in the theme is very deep and rich and makes a perfect theme for S60 devices such as Nokia 5800. I also think the color of red looks very classy on black phones.
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Included in the package is the “Shi” theme seven icons for the 3rd edition, E series and 5th edition. If you’ve been following tehk7 on Twitter, you maybe aware that the release of this theme was delayed few weeks because of known issue with Nokia’s Carbide theming program. Since then Nokia has fixed the problem and Tehk expects to have the theme released on Friday July 24.

You can learn more about this theme and pricing options here.

Themes
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