You can also write games or other apps for the N-Gage in OPL or a form of VB as you can with any Series 60 Symbian device.
The only reason you might want to be an "authorised N-Gage developer" would be to sell games on memory cards (a very small section of Series 60 apps). Otherwise you can write C++, J2ME, OPL or VB apps for any Symbian phone without having to sign up (and pony up lots of money) to any special schemes.
It's already free (or very very close) with a pay monthly phone contract in Europe anyway.
It's an interesting device even if you're not interested in playing games, it's the cheapest Series 60 Symbian phone on the market although the lack of a camera does diminish its appeal.
As a pocket sized permanently networked computer it's certainly an interesting proposition.
Picture sending is definitely possible (I've received/sent pics to/from others plenty of times), most Bluetooth phones tend to be higher end devices with cameras anyway, so a picture of the current environment is trivial to send.
As for social networking, that's already being looked at, the Friend-of-a-Friend project people (social networking based on open format XML/RDF files) are already looking at FoafMobile with Bluetooth being a major component.
The only minor problem with this is that you may not be talking to the person you think you are.
Instead of sending a chat up line to the beautiful blonde waving her Nokia 3650 (which just happens to have Bluetooth turned off), you might well be sending it the lawyer behind you who has a phone in his jacket pocket.
It can be a very indiscriminate way to broadcast a message.
Software distribution by Bluetooth
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Spammed by Bluetooth
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· Score: 2, Interesting
A friend of mine uses Bluetooth in this way to distribute his freeware Symbian games such as Vexed to other Symbian phones.
Watch out for a manic Scotsman on the London tube system waving a Nokia 7650...
If you're concerned about phone size then the new generation of Symbian phones are a fair bit smaller than the Nokia 3650.
I wrote about smartphone sizes on Mobitopia the other day with a table of sizes here.
The P900 is slightly smaller than the "elderly" P800, the real surprise is the new Sendo X which is only marginally bigger than a Sony Ericsson T610 and packs far more capabilities.
All About Symbian is a good starting point for everything in the Symbian World. That's the SonyEricsson P800 and P900, Nokia's 3650, 7650, 6600 and 9210, Motorola A920, Siemens SX1, Samsung SGH-D700, Sendo X etc.
Symbian's own site has some good background on the OS and developing for it too.
Mobitopia has plenty of news and analysis of mobile and wireless tech and a *big* list of links to other mobile sites.
The Nokia 6600 is way smarter than the T610, it too is a full on smartphone with gui, like the P900 it uses Symbian's OS, the big difference from a user POV being the screen size (the P900's is bigger) and input methods.
Both allow you to develop software in Java, C++, OPL, and even Basic. They're full-on networked computers that fit your pocket.
I've seen it at 49 quid (with a 50 quid cash back) in the UK (Phones4U), and most of Europe has it for 1 or less with something like a 25/month one year contract.
You need a SIM, but you can pick up a PAYG one with very limited credit for around a fiver.
"How many 13 year olds have cell phones?" - Every single one I know does, but I live in Europe, my 6 year old daughter is pushing me for one already, and that's far from unusual...
The N-Gage is free here in Europe with a one year 25/month contract (what's that 30USD?), that's going to make it look pretty enticing to a lot of people.
Some of these people will be stuck in existing phone contracts, so take up might be slow at first.
3G is good, but it's not a LAN technology it's a WAN technology.
It's only a matter of time before you can get a 3G card for your PC, GSM/GPRS cards have been about for ages, and when they do come about, you'll be using the mobile service provider's network for your traffic on these cards and paying appropriately. Their licenses for this chunk of spectrum didn't come cheap so I wouldn't expect your bandwidth to be cheap either.
As you say the cold hard facts aren't that exciting, think of it as something useful for now, use the best one for the situation and look forward to something better in the next rev - 4G/5G whatever.
Re:Alright smartypants
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Is 3G Irrelevant?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Well here's a few things I do now with my 2.5G phone (Siemens S55), with a better phone like say a Symbian one (P800, 3650) or 3G I'd do more.
Read email, write email, take pictures of things - the camera is always with me, so it's really off-the-cuff spur of the moment stuff - it's not megapixel but VGA res is good for quick snaps. send pictures via email, send pictures via mms, send pictures via Bluetooth to other phones and my PC, chat on IRC - using Virca a J2ME IRC app, chat on IM - using TipicME a J2ME Jabber app, write SMS, read SMS, surf with WAP - yeah it's not great, but it's pretty quick with GPRS, surf the Web - the phone's got a built in XHTML browser so a few web sites work straight out of the box, otherwise I can use a proxy. sync entries from my addressbook (the addressbook uses vCards) with other phones via bluetooth, sync my addressbook with my PC with bluetooth, Send my business card to other bluetooth devices, play games, update my blog via email.
There's probably a few more things I do like using it for voice calls too!
So you've got a computer? What do you do with it, look at websites? Email? Is that all?
A modern phone is a networked computer that fits in your pocket, if you can't think of anything interesting to do with a tool like that I'm surprised you even managed to find your way to Slashdot!
Phoneman allows you to do all sorts of things on a gsm phone (update phonebook, send sms, change ringtones, logos etc.), it only works on EPOC machines atm though (Psion 5, 7, Netbook etc.).
I don't know if your StarTac is supported though (most of the better Nokias, Ericssons and Siemens phones are).
Slashdot Mirror
You can also write games or other apps for the N-Gage in OPL or a form of VB as you can with any Series 60 Symbian device.
The only reason you might want to be an "authorised N-Gage developer" would be to sell games on memory cards (a very small section of Series 60 apps). Otherwise you can write C++, J2ME, OPL or VB apps for any Symbian phone without having to sign up (and pony up lots of money) to any special schemes.
It's already free (or very very close) with a pay monthly phone contract in Europe anyway.
It's an interesting device even if you're not interested in playing games, it's the cheapest Series 60 Symbian phone on the market although the lack of a camera does diminish its appeal.
As a pocket sized permanently networked computer it's certainly an interesting proposition.
Picture sending is definitely possible (I've received/sent pics to/from others plenty of times), most Bluetooth phones tend to be higher end devices with cameras anyway, so a picture of the current environment is trivial to send.
As for social networking, that's already being looked at, the Friend-of-a-Friend project people (social networking based on open format XML/RDF files) are already looking at FoafMobile with Bluetooth being a major component.
The only minor problem with this is that you may not be talking to the person you think you are.
Instead of sending a chat up line to the beautiful blonde waving her Nokia 3650 (which just happens to have Bluetooth turned off), you might well be sending it the lawyer behind you who has a phone in his jacket pocket.
It can be a very indiscriminate way to broadcast a message.
A friend of mine uses Bluetooth in this way to distribute his freeware Symbian games such as Vexed to other Symbian phones.
Watch out for a manic Scotsman on the London tube system waving a Nokia 7650...
Conversely why did they use a broken antique OS for the Clie when they already had a share in the Symbian consortium? Horses for courses I guess.
Memory Stick Duos are about half the length of regular memory sticks, so it's a packaging consideration (as it was on the P800).
If you're concerned about phone size then the new generation of Symbian phones are a fair bit smaller than the Nokia 3650.
I wrote about smartphone sizes on Mobitopia the other day with a table of sizes here.
The P900 is slightly smaller than the "elderly" P800, the real surprise is the new Sendo X which is only marginally bigger than a Sony Ericsson T610 and packs far more capabilities.
All About Symbian is a good starting point for everything in the Symbian World. That's the SonyEricsson P800 and P900, Nokia's 3650, 7650, 6600 and 9210, Motorola A920, Siemens SX1, Samsung SGH-D700, Sendo X etc.
Symbian's own site has some good background on the OS and developing for it too.
Mobitopia has plenty of news and analysis of mobile and wireless tech and a *big* list of links to other mobile sites.
Maybe it won't take off in the US, but the Palm platform is pretty much invisible in Europe too.
One thing to remember is that the P800 is the biggest selling PDA right now, so the Symbian UIQ platform is hardly a rarity...
The Nokia 6600 is way smarter than the T610, it too is a full on smartphone with gui, like the P900 it uses Symbian's OS, the big difference from a user POV being the screen size (the P900's is bigger) and input methods.
Both allow you to develop software in Java, C++, OPL, and even Basic. They're full-on networked computers that fit your pocket.
The Sendo X has the same functionality as the Nokia 6600 and is smaller and prettier. There's a load of cool new Symbian phones coming out now.
I've seen it at 49 quid (with a 50 quid cash back) in the UK (Phones4U), and most of Europe has it for 1 or less with something like a 25/month one year contract.
You need a SIM, but you can pick up a PAYG one with very limited credit for around a fiver.
"How many 13 year olds have cell phones?" - Every single one I know does, but I live in Europe, my 6 year old daughter is pushing me for one already, and that's far from unusual...
The N-Gage is free here in Europe with a one year 25/month contract (what's that 30USD?), that's going to make it look pretty enticing to a lot of people.
Some of these people will be stuck in existing phone contracts, so take up might be slow at first.
Why would you want to use a text based browser? Have you seen a modern phone?
Opera is available on the Symbian platform i.e. devices like the Nokia 3650, hell it comes as standard on the P800.
We're talking colour screens - about as tiny as palm screen - and normal web browsing.
But playing a game can be frustrating, I suspect you're talking about Vexed - http://www.symbiandiaries.com/vexed/
Do you really need just one application?
Couple the tech that's in a Symbian phone with 3G levels of bandwidth, and you've got a very interesting little device.
A cheap networked computer which fits in your pocket - I can think of more than one thing with something like that...
You're missing the point...
3G is good, but it's not a LAN technology it's a WAN technology.
It's only a matter of time before you can get a 3G card for your PC, GSM/GPRS cards have been about for ages, and when they do come about, you'll be using the mobile service provider's network for your traffic on these cards and paying appropriately. Their licenses for this chunk of spectrum didn't come cheap so I wouldn't expect your bandwidth to be cheap either.
As you say the cold hard facts aren't that exciting, think of it as something useful for now, use the best one for the situation and look forward to something better in the next rev - 4G/5G whatever.
Well here's a few things I do now with my 2.5G phone (Siemens S55), with a better phone like say a Symbian one (P800, 3650) or 3G I'd do more.
Read email, write email, take pictures of things - the camera is always with me, so it's really off-the-cuff spur of the moment stuff - it's not megapixel but VGA res is good for quick snaps.
send pictures via email, send pictures via mms,
send pictures via Bluetooth to other phones and my PC,
chat on IRC - using Virca a J2ME IRC app,
chat on IM - using TipicME a J2ME Jabber app,
write SMS, read SMS,
surf with WAP - yeah it's not great, but it's pretty quick with GPRS,
surf the Web - the phone's got a built in XHTML browser so a few web sites work straight out of the box, otherwise I can use a proxy.
sync entries from my addressbook (the addressbook uses vCards) with other phones via bluetooth,
sync my addressbook with my PC with bluetooth,
Send my business card to other bluetooth devices,
play games,
update my blog via email.
There's probably a few more things I do like using it for voice calls too!
So you've got a computer? What do you do with it, look at websites? Email? Is that all?
A modern phone is a networked computer that fits in your pocket, if you can't think of anything interesting to do with a tool like that I'm surprised you even managed to find your way to Slashdot!
Quite right, the headline ought to have been US Cell Phone Number Portability Finally A Reality? Years after the rest of the World
It's almost as dumb as the US attempts to force CDMA on the Iraqis after the war - Mobitopia article
I don't know if your StarTac is supported though (most of the better Nokias, Ericssons and Siemens phones are).
Jim.