Steve Litchfield from “All About Symbian”

Today NMT welcomes Steve Litchfield from All About Symbian, as we all know AAS is probably the oldest Nokia/Symbian site with tons of traffic and quality content. I know I started reading AAS a long time ago and I’m very honored to be having Steve here with us today. Steve Litchfield is a pillar of the community and also hosts several other sites that are also very informative – The Phone Shows and 3-Lib so do make sure you check them out. Without further ado -  Steve Litchfield.

Tell us a little about your background and what lead you to start writing about Nokia and Symbian?

I’ve been writing about, and programming for, every Psion/Epoc/Symbian platform for the last 16 years – just a fascination with mobile technology really, being able to take everything with you. I started out as more of a programmer and have ended up as more of a writer. Possibly a natural evolution!

What are your views on the N9% Trilogy, will Nokia ever reach that zenith once again?

The original N95 Classic was certainly a watershed in the smartphone world and showed everyone the way to go. In fact, for some roles, it’s STILL the best device in the world. Nokia do seem to move in cycles though – maybe this is natural, too – last year’s N79, N85 and N96 were, taken as a generation, somewhat underwhelming, while the newer 5800 and imminent N97 are more impressive, at least in terms of moving things in an interesting direction.

In terms of a hardware zenith, I think Samsung has rather stolen Nokia’s thunder by coming out with the Omnia HD, also imminent!

What are your thoughts and wishes for the newly created Symbian Foundation?

Seems a logical way to go and I wish them all the best – but I don’t envy them the amount of work involved in actually getting the releases agreed on and published – I do worry that they might not have the resources to follow everything through – let’s hope they can hire more smart people!

How does it feel to have one of the most famous Nokia and Symbian English speaking blogs in the world?

You mean AAS? Or The Phones Show? Or 3-Lib? Hey, that’s three -)

Feels great, though nothing ever stays the same for long and both myself and the AAS team are very aware that we have to keep pumping out quality output and keeping our eyes on the industry if we want to stay top of the heap.

What are your top 5 favorite applications and why?

For which platform? Any? Hmm… There’s the cross-platform and utterly fabulous Google Maps. There’s Nokia’s Podcasting, which helps me to sleep (in a good way) each night. The BBC iPlayer runs on some S60 phones and the iPhone and is a joy to use on the whole. And I’ll round out the 5 with two time and money-saving web browsers, Opera Mini and Skyfire, both of which are technically impressive.

What advice can you give new bloggers in general? I know its taken you a few years to be one of the top bloggers but can you tell us a little about your journey to that position.

Write as well as you can and as much as you can about subjects that you’re passionate about. Be involved in the wider community/forums/events and make links and alliances. And be patient.

What are you two favorite Nokia Smartphones of all time and which smartphone are you looking forward to use?

Just Nokia? OK, the 6630, the ancestor of all the current devices – this was the first S60 phone to have a decent camera and the first to have stereo audio. Loved mine to bits. And the N95, of course, that stonking spec that opened up so many convergence possibilities – 5mp cam, VGA video, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc. all in one mainstream device for the first time.

If I’ m allowed to delve further back in time and away from S60 then the Nokia 9500 Communicator too. Another top all-in-one device for its time.

What are your thoughts on the rumors that Nokia will be joining the netbook business?

Can’t see it happening – they’re more likely to do other devices in the N810 vein – would that class as a netbook? Or a tablet? Or a PDA? The lines are certainly being blurred these days!

What’s your favorite color, sport, blog(not related to Nokia), movie, PC Operating System, and music band.

Black, F1, my own(!), ‘The Magnificent Seven’, OS 10.5 Leopard [or did you mean actual 'PC'? - in which case Windows ME – yeah, I was the one in 100 who liked it!], anything with Eric Clapton post-1990s…

Steve, it was my pleasure and thanks for participating in our series it was fun.

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