Sorry about the lack of updates, it's been quite hectic here getting everything ready for my studies.

Anyways, back to the main story - turns out the Xperia X1 product manager Magnus Andersson has said something important:

"The brand is not tied into any specific technical platform,"

This is definitely good news for all users who prefer the UIQ platform over Windows Mobile. After all, now that UIQ is part of the Symbian Foundation of which Sony Ericsson is a committed member of, it opens up the possibility of a UIQ version of the Xperia X1, or future models in the Xperia series.

The Reuters news report also the date of release in Europe as well:

Sony Ericsson, which denied earlier this month the X1 would miss the key Christmas sales period, reiterated on Monday that the phone would start shipping to Britain, Germany and Sweden on September 30. It declined to give prices.

Yes, and also for interested users living in America - here's a piece of information that you may wish to keep in mind.

An announcement about North America -- a market Sony Ericsson has said it would make a top priority this year -- will be made on November 3, a spokeswoman said.

Source: Reuters

Thank you to all my loyal readers - the Sony Ericsson P1i Blog is now (finally!) 1 year old. The blog has gone a long way from just being updated during my Computer Science class when my teacher wasn't looking to getting around 100,000 pageviews a month, with over 1000 subscribers following the blog daily according to Feedburner. It's gone over 2 major redesigns, 1 extremely believable April Fools Joke, lots and lots of emails, 2 major hiatuses (I apologise to all readers for that) - but it's still going on, because you readers still want it around. Also a big thank you to asri and ares from UIQBlog for the news and tips on the Symbian UIQ platform.

And yes, just to reaffirm things, I have no intention of closing this blog or stopping the updates even though I will be having a change of scenary (from Hong Kong to UK as I will be attending university there). I will try to keep to the schedule of getting at least a few posts up every week, so stay tuned on the blog.

Drop me an email if you've got any suggestions on how I should improve the blog or if you want me to analyse and discuss particular news/features regarding the P1.

And in other news that's remotely connected to the Sony Ericsson P1, we have the specific release date for SE's incoming business flagship model. Yes, the XPERIA X1 is finally launching on September the 30th.

Sweden, Germany, and the UK will be the inaugural launch sites come September 30, with no fewer than 32 more on tap in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America for the fourth quarter of the year. North America, China, Australia, and Russia are also listed as committed launch regions, though dates for those will be announced "in the coming months" -- scary verbiage considering that they weren't even willing to slap the Q4 label there.

I just wonder how many of you readers will feel compelled to switch. Will this signify the real end of the SE P1? Not likely, if the cost is exactly what MobileCity is offering to interested users. Just brace yourself and be prepared to pay a huge premium if you're getting it on the day it's coming out.

Source: Engadget

Turns out that UIQ wasn't part of the Symbian Foundation, at least not official, until just earlier on today. With the additional endorsements by large mobile phone industry companies such as Opera, Sharp, UIQ, etc. a few hours earlier, there's a total of 40 companies now involved with the Symbian Foundation.

From the Press Release:

Since plans for the Symbian Foundation were announced, hundreds of organizations have registered their interest in joining the foundation via the website at www.symbianfoundation.org.

As previously announced, the plans for the establishment of the Symbian Foundation and royalty-free licensing of foundation software are:

1. The acquisition of Symbian Limited by Nokia, expected to close in Q4, 2008, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
   
   
2. Software assets are contributed to the foundation, including Symbian OS and S60 by Nokia, UIQ technology by Motorola and Sony Ericsson and MOAP(S) by NTT DOCOMO and Fujitsu.
   
   
3. This contributed software will be available under a royalty-free license to foundation members from the first day of Symbian Foundation operations, expected 1H 2009.
   
   
4. The Foundation will work to unify the platform, with the first unified foundation release expected in 2009.
   
   
5. The foundation will work to make the platform available in open source by June 2010 (two years from the Symbian Foundation announcement)

Source: Symbian

If you're a novice programmer or just have too much spare time on your hands, then maybe it's worth checking this out - a developer's guide to application development on the UIQ platform. Oh yes, and several porting guides that you may want to read to help out with porting great apps to the UIQ platform so all of us in the UIQ community can benefit. Specifically, porting from Symbian S60 to the UIQ platform and porting applications to the UIQ platform in general.

Hopefully this post does reach out to several UIQ developers, because below is a list of applications that definitely needs to be ported to the UIQ 3 platform. I'm no great programmer myself, but I might be able to help on some of the projects..

• Joikuspot - Turn your phone (WiFi enabled) in to a wireless hotspot so other devices can connect via the phone's 3G connection.
  
• Nokia's Internet Radio - to listen to all those awesome radio streams easily.
  
• Nokia Conversation - god would I love a free threaded SMS app.
• Mobitubia - I think all of us have been waiting for an integrated Youtube client..

Any other software that you think needs to be ported?

For those readers who are newer to this blog and isn't very sure on how to mod or hack your Sony Ericsson P1, I recommend reading this post by strizlow800 on the Easto forums. It's a post on installing Capswitch (developed by swmail), which gives the users unlimited access to protected files and folders on the phone, and a Symbian OS 9.1 override to allow users to install unsigned applications. In 'iPhone terms', to Jailbreak your P1.

It's always nice to see members within the P1 community giving a helping hand to those who are new here :) My thanks to strizlow800.

I've only ever updated my firmware 3 times on my Sony Ericsson P1 - first it was the upgrade to R9H, then R9J and lastly R9K. 3 firmware updates in the space of more than a year. How's that for complete product support?

Let's compare it with another one of the older Sony Ericsson flagship products, the P990. 2 firmware updates in its entire lifespan as the flagship product. And in the end, it was hardly perfect - more like a perfectly flawed smart phone (which incidently prompted some to purchase the P1).


With the G700/G900 filling in the void which the P1 never filled, it seems unlikely that us P1 users will ever see a firmware update fixing the bugs that was always there. The M600 and the W950 were the only UIQ smartphones to receive a bundle of software updates, and the only reason was due to the fact that there were irreplaceable UIQ phones, until their successors the P1 and the W960 was released (Incidentally once the P1 and the W960 was released firmware updates for both phones were stopped). Now that the G900 and the G700 are filling in the P1's shoes, it doesn't seem likely that the P1 will ever get another firmware update.

On an additional note, I happened to pass by the Sony Ericsson customer center here in Hong Kong and upon asking for the status of the P1 and whether updates were available, the reply was "P1? I would wait for the XPERIA if I were you".

Yep, it's official. Thanks to developer/modder/hacker swmail, the person also behind porting Walkman 3 to the Sony Ericsson P1 as well as the hack to allow unsigned apps to be installed, we've now gotten a port of the SE G700/G900 Flash firmware support. Basically this means that the P1 can now play swf files (not flv files for now) - a massive 'breakthrough' for current P1 users who can enjoy a much closer experience to full web browsing on the 'old' Opera.


Alright, installation instructions are as below (taken from swmail's readme):

• Install CapsSwitch and 'SIS installer mod for Symbian 9.1'.
• Download archive with the program from http://www.agathosyne.de/files_ext/FlashPlugin.zip
• Install FlashPlugin.
• Start Opera
• Go to More >> Settings >> Configuration >> and tick "Allow Plugins"
• Enjoy Flash support!

Shame on you SE. We expected an attempt from the manufacturers to get Flash on the P1, but I guess in the end it's gotta be the independent devs who bail you out. Guess we can't expect anything decent from you guys anymore after the announcement to push UIQ to the Symbian Foundation...

Oh yes, and a big thanks to swmail. If you like his work please donate to encourage him to continue :)

Update: My bad, a big thanks to ares and asri from UIQBlog

Due to personal reasons, I will not be available for the next few days - so there will be no blog posts until next week. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Update: For those of you who are wondering where I was, I had a bit of a problem with universities because I missed my conditional offers. It's been resolved now, and I've updated my "About" page if you're interested in where I'm going and stuff.

My apologies to all for being MIA for a better part of the month. Rest be assured that this blog will continue to operate until I get less than 10 hits a day because everyone's moved on from their Sony Ericsson P1...