Big guns unveil new toys at MWC
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Sony Ericsson and Microsoft announce application store launch.
The Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicked off today with all of the household names in the mobile industry showing off their new shiny gadgets.
In a big boys’ version of show and tell, the giants of the technology world came to demonstrate the new wondrous gizmos we will all be swooning over for the coming year.
Nokia played it cool but safe, unveiling a predictable but sorely needed applications store to provide a solid foundation and central hub for developers to make S40 and S60 based applications. Nokia had to introduce this feature if they were to keep up with the likes of Apple, Google and RIM.
Nokia’s Ovi Store then comes as no surprise to consumers but it still looks cool and looks like it could provide a hard hitting rival to current market leaders Apple. Nokia announced that the June release of their N97 handset would be the first of its kind to Ovi Store pre-installed, but other users will be able to download the service from June.
Microsoft also got in on the action with their new Windows Phones which will come onto the market in the final quarter of this year. Microsoft’s application store, Windows Marketplace will be available in conjunction with the launch of the new phone, which Microsoft is confident will help claw back some of its dominant market share from Apple.
Sony Ericsson, like Nokia played things pretty safe, announcing the launch of the soon-to-be-available W995, which is frighteningly similar to the W910i and probably to be lost in the mire of same-phone-prettier-cover syndrome.
Sony Ericsson caused a stir however with some early hints at its new Idou phone, an S60 finger-driven iPhone rival, which sports both Walkman and Cybershot Sony brands. Perhaps most exciting about the Idou however, is the whopping 12.1 megapixel camera that it is set to include, blowing all competition momentarily out of the water.
Samsung announced their new handset, the Omnia HD, which will allow users to record video at 24 frames per second in high definition and then watch it back on their HDTV using Samsung’s streaming technology. Vodafone also released details of several new handsets, most notably the Vodafone 835 with 2.4 inch colour display and in-built GPS navigation system.
