Today, in a blog post Nokia announced that the Nokia Belle update for some of its existing Symbian running handsets will be available soon.

The Nokia Belle update, formerly Symbian Belle, will bring with it a a whole bunch of changes including a new, much more user friendly touch UI, new widgets, up to 6 home screens, faster and smoother performance and much more.

Nokia had announced a few Belle running handsets earlier this year, including the Nokia 701, 700 and the 603.  Nokia has already started shipping ‘enhanced’ versions of the Nokia N8, C7, and the C6-01 with Nokia Belle pre-loaded. The first batch of such handsets are on their way from Nokia’s factory to hit the retail stores in China.

Current Nokia N8, C7, C6-01, E6 and E7 owners need to wait for a couple of months more, as Nokia intends on releasing the Belle update for these handsets in Feburary 2012. Well that’s Nokia way of saying thanks to all you early adopters out there!

Today, in a blog post Nokia announced that a new version of the Nokia Maps Suite is now available for download for Symbian handset users. The update brings about some major changes in the Nokia Pulse app, including few login prompts, improved notifications and much more.

The update also removes the Live View app from the Nokia Maps suite, but the app is still available for download as a standalone app.

Below is the full change-log for the update-:

Pulse  v0.91.21

• Login fewer Nokia Account login prompts
• Notifications more reliable push notifications
• Keyboard various bug fixes including stuck CAP lock, frozen cursor, delete key stops functioning, and we also added split-screen feature
• Interoperability compatible with latest versions of various Qt components, especially important because the latest Store client available this week uses a new version of a dependency that is not compatible with the previous Pulse v0.91(6)

Live View

• No longer included in Map Suite
• Still available as  standalone app

Public Transport

• No changes

Places

• No changes

In the last month or so, a Symbian Belle firmware had leaked online for the Nokia C7 and the E6. However, no Belle firmware leaked online for the Nokia N8, which is probably the most popular Symbian^3 phone out there.

Now, it looks like the guy who leaked the earlier Belle firmware felt bad for the N8 owners and has leaked a new Belle firmware for the handset. The leaked firmware (v111.030) is newer than the C7′s leaked Belle firmware. The new firmware contains quite a lot of new widgets and is also much more smoother and faster compared to the C7′s Belle FW.

Below is a video of the leaked FW in action on the N8 -:

Interested readers can find the download link and installation steps here.

The official Symbian Belle update for all the existing Symbian^3 handsets is expected to land sometime in Q1 of 2012. For the unknown, the Belle update will bring with it a  noticeable  improvement in the UI of Symbian phones, new animations, widgets, up to 6 home screens and much more.

Late last month, a Symbian Belle firmware for the Nokia C7 made its way on the Internet. Now, a couple of weeks later, a Belle FW for the Nokia E6 has leaked online. The Belle update for the Symbian^3 handsets is going to bring some much needed UI enhancements, a new camera app and much more.

Some E6 owners who tried the leaked Belle FW on their phone are reporting an increase in performance, and a much smoother scrolling performance compared to the Anna firmware. Other changes in the Belle FW include new widgets for weather and mail,   a much faster and improved web browser, and a much prettier and usable UI. Interested Nokia E6 owners can find the download link and installation instructions over at DailyMobile forums. Since this is an early leak, I’d recommend business oriented users to stay away from this leak.

The official Symbian Belle firmware update for the existing bunch of Symbian^3 handsets like the Nokia N8, C7, C6-01, and the E6 will get the official firmware update sometime in early 2012.

Sabeer Bhatia, the serial entrepreneur from India who became a household name back in the late nineties with Hotmail’s meteoric rise, has been trying hard to repeat his success, but his later projects like Arzoo and BlogEverywhere flopped spectacularly in spite of plenty of initial hype. Nevertheless, not being the one to give up, he is back again with a new product. Bhatia believes that his new venture called Jaxtr, launched in partnership with Yogesh Patel, has the potential to be as disruptive and popular as Hotmail, which pioneered the email revolution.

JaxtrSMS is a free mobile texting app that is launching with support for a wide range of platforms including Android, iOS, Blackberry, Symbian, and Java. Free texting apps are dime a dozen these days, and Jaxtr is entering a fairly competitive and crowded space. Giants such as RIM, Google, and Facebook are tugging it out with newcomers like Kik and WhatsApp. However, Jaxtr has one feature that almost all of its competitors lack – support for SMS. Jaxtr works for all your contacts, no matter where they are in the world and what phone they are using. If the receiver has Jaxtr installed then he will instantly receive your message through app to app delivery. If he doesn’t have Jaxtr installed, then he will receive a standard SMS message. Although I can’t vouch for Jaxtr’s claims of complete worldwide coverage, it did work for the Indian carriers that I tested.

Jaxtr’s user interface varies significantly across platforms. I took the Android version of Jaxtr for a spin. Although the color combination is rather distracting (the iPhone app is offensively ugly), the interface feels intuitive and familiar. However, there are a couple of annoyances that might put off users. Jaxtr transparently attaches an annoying ad (self-promotion) to every SMS sent through it, and it doesn’t provide delivery reports. On a couple of occasions, the SMS didn’t actually get delivered even though Jaxtr marked it as sent. If Jaxtr wishes to be taken seriously, it needs to sort out these two issues. However, it is undoubtedly the most promising product that we have seen in recent times from Bhatia.

Nokia will soon start rolling out a new firmware update for its recently released handset, the Nokia 603. This is the first firmware update for the handset since its release, so users should not expect some major changes. In all probability, the update is aimed at fixing some bugs with the firmware the phone released with.

The new firmware update carries the version no 111.030.0607, and will be rolled out via OTA (Over-The-Air) and Nokia Suite.

Nokia 603 owners are recommended to create a backup of their phone’s data, even though the handset supports User Data Preservation, just in case things go wrong.

According to Symbian Tweet, a new Symbian Belle firmware update will also be available for all other Belle running handsets. At the moment the change-log is still unknown, so not much can be said about the changes these new firmware updates will bring.

Nokia will soon be also rolling out firmware updates for the N8, C7, C6-01 and the E7. The new firmware update will bring the latest version of Symbian – Belle – to these handsets. The update is scheduled to be released sometime before 2011 ends.

After the launch of the iPhone back in 2007, Nokia which is one of the largest mobile handset manufacturers in the world, has been having a pretty rough time.  Symbian OS, which has been powering the Finnish company’s handsets for quite a few years now, came under heavy criticism.

Earlier, the company tried to somehow adapt the non-touch Symbian OS with the S60v5 OS release. However, after heavy criticism the company went back to the drawing board and released Symbian^3. The new OS was much faster than its predecessor, but still lacked some basic functionalities and had an inconsistent UI. Nokia followed Symbian^3 with Symbian Anna, which brought some much needed changes including a faster browser, and more consistent UI.

Symbian Anna was  succeeded  by Belle, which brings a new notification bar, new keyboard, an  improved  camera UI and some minor UI tweaks. While Nokia has already released some Symbian Belle running handsets, the company has promised that it will update its older Symbian^3 handsets like the C7, N8 and the E7 to Belle as well.

The Belle update is scheduled to be released sometime before 2011 ends. While Nokia N8, C6-01 and E7 owners still need to wait patiently for the Belle update, curious C7 owners can enjoy the latest Symbian update on their handset by flashing a leaked Belle firmware for their handsets. C7 owners need to use the Phoenix tool to flash the leaked firmawre file on their handset.

Interested Nokia C7 owners can head over to this site for step by step instructions and download links.

The third quarter of 2011 may have ended months ago, but the reports are still pouring in. This time, it’s Gartner, and it confirms what we have suspected all along.

Android is on a rampage, and continues to increase its share of total smartphone sales worldwide. 52.5% of all smartphones sold in Q3 2011 were powered by Android. iOS devices accounted for just 15% of global smartphone sales, and surprisingly, Symbian smartphones accounted for 16.9%.

Even though the total number of iOS devices increased, the percentage of iOS devices sold actually decreased, mostly due to Android. Boosted by the launch of the iPhone 4S, I expect iOS to overtake Symbian in the next quarter.

In terms of total mobile device sales in Q3 2011, Nokia maintained a huge lead in the market, with a 23.9% share. Samsung came second with a 17.8% share. Apple was way behind, with just a 3.9% share.

However, Apple probably makes more money from a single device sale than any other manufacturer does from ten, so these numbers aren’t really indicative of actual success in the mobile market.

Microsoft doesn’t seem to be having much success with Windows Phone, with its share of device sales dropping to just 1.5%. I agree that it was quite late to the market, but 1.5% is too low… almost humiliating, especially if you consider the rave reviews it has been getting. Hopefully, things will improve for it in 2012.

Last month, Nokia rolled out firmware updates for two of its handsets, the Nokia 5800 and 5530, both of which are nearly two year old now.

Now, Nokia has started rolling out another firmware update for another of its previous-generation handset, the E72. The E72 was the successor to the highly popular E71, and met with moderate success.

The new firmware update – v81 – weighs in at 1.3MB, and mainly updates the core apps of the phone. This includes the Web browser, which gets updated to the same version as the one found in Nokia’s Symbian Anna powered phone. This should hopefully make the browsing experience on the E72 much more tolerable. The inbuilt Email and QuickOffice app have also got a minor version update.

Other than the above said changes, users should also see improvements in the stability and performance of the phone.

The update is being rolled out in stages, so it might take a while before the update shows up on your phone. E72 owners can either update the phone via OTA (Over-The-Air), or by using Nokia Software Updater/Nokia Suite. Even though the E72 features UDP (User Data Preservation), users are recommended to make a backup of their phone’s data before proceeding with the firmware update.

Head over to AllAboutSymbian for more information and discussion about the new firmware update for the E72.

Hot on the heels of the v25 firmware update for their Symbian^3 phones, Nokia has started rolling out a ‘performance’ pack for their handsets.

As the name suggests, the  ’performance’ pack aims at improving the performance and stability of the phone and its core apps. The change-log states an improvement in the email app, improved GPS performance and ‘more’. The update is an application level update, and not a firmware level update. Thus, the firmware version of your phone will remain the same post the update.

Users who have already installed the update reported an improvement in the performance of the email app, along with an overall performance improvement. The update is available via OTA (Over-The-Air) as well as via Nokia Suite. Go to the Software Update app on your Symbian^3 phone to download and install this 1MB update.

This performance update is available for all Symbian^3 handsets running Symbian Anna, including the Nokia N8, C7, C6-01 and the E7.

Head over to AllAboutSymbian for more information and discussion about this ‘performance’ update.