Example: Sony Ericsson Timescape, the “signature” Nexus app, sounds a lot like HTC’s Sense in that it pulls in a bunch of services like Facebook and Twitter for your contacts, but it’s more straightforwardly organised around timelines, which you can break down by service, events or whatever. There’s also an infinite button. For infinite discoveries.

MediaScape looks uncannily like Windows Media Center, if you stuck it on a phone. It’s actually nice. The camera software is swanky, with facial recognition and tagging like a real Sony camera.

Apparently, it’s not going to be restricted to just smartphones, but could reach some of their more “mainstream” phones. How they’re going to get developers to develop apps for Nexus though, is another question entirely.

The S60 5th edition OS (as used on the N97) might be mature, but it’s pretty damn woeful. Maemo 5 (used by the N97 mini and N900) definitely has a better user experience, and though it’s not perfect either, it’s headed in the right direction. Speaking of which, Nokia’s next OS, Maemo 6, could look like this. [The Reality Mobile Project]

Despite the communication announcing the new Optus App Store’s arrival, there’s precious little actual information about it, other than the fact that there’s over 1000 apps available now, and that you can charge the app purchase to your bill. There’s no word on whether the content for this menacing threat to App stores is universal across the different platforms or whether apps are device specific. There’s also no word as to just how much applications will cost, and what percentage Optus will take, or how developers go about getting their programs on the Optus store.

If you’re brave enough to boldly go where only Optus employees have gone before, you can access the store by clicking the App icon in Optus Zoo on your phone, or texting app to 966 (so long as you’re an Optus customer, of course).

Only LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson make Symbian phones of note — Motorola axed its line. Samsung puts its TouchWiz UI on top of the dreadful S60 OS, and Sony Ericsson will likely do the same with its Rachael interface. Android is taking off, and even Nokia is looking to its Linux-based Maemo OS for its best stuff, like the N900. The Symbian OS still has a big slice of the phone market, but for how long?

And the cool UI in this video? The Symbian Foundation says that it’s not part of the Symbian UI roadmap, but they hope some of the features and effects make it into their reference UI and/or delivered handsets. Will you still care? [All About Symbian via SlashGear]

Nokia’s aging Symbian S60 OS isn’t maturing so well, as seen on their N97 handset, and though they’ve made some positive strides with Maemo, it sounds like they might be limiting themselves to those two OSes — at least until the market forces them elsewhere.

Nothing for the iPhone. “Still a closed device and not much progress there,” Adobe told us as they gleefully detailed that Flash was invading basically every other smartphone. Also, we gotta wait until mid-2010 for the full rollout. But, betas for Windows Mobile and WebOS are coming this year, with Android and Symbian early next, meaning you can get your mobile vids on before then. BlackBerry will be a bit longer, since RIM just joined Adobe’s Open Screen project. Supposedly, Flash won’t run like total garbage on phones, either, like Flash Lite. Fingers crossed, guys!

The GPU acceleration for Flash is the real deal, for sure, though — I watched a Star Trek trailer on YouTube HD on an Nvidia Ion-powered HP Mini 311 output to an external monitor, even, and it ran flawlessly. Which, if you’ve ever tried to play an HD Flash clip, even on full-fledged systems it molests CPU cycles, so just working on a $US400 netbook very nearly deserves applause.

Flash 10.1 has a few other tricks too with full support for multitouch, gestures and accelerometer input — meaning it’d be perfect on the iPhone, if Apple would ever let it through. And make no mistake, Apple is the roadblock there, since Adobe said engineering work has continued (10,000 years later). The fact that full Flash will be on basically every single smartphone platform also makes that pretty clear.

If you want to spin that positively (my coffee cup is half-full, after all) the iPhone is now basically the only place you can go to flee from Flash, which basically covers everything like a pulsating squid thing with icky tentacles and stuff, ceaselessly stretching out to ensnare more. There is no escape. Except the iPhone. (Which kinda makes no Flash a feature, right?)

Oh, and the new Adobe AIR—TweetDeck, the NY Times Reader and other software runs on top of it—will slightly be less abominable, gobbling less memory and acting more like a real application, with USB mass storage support, multitouch and gesture input, and p2p powers for stuff like Skype and gaming.

Bottom line, It’s a Flashy world, we just live in it.

Adobe Unveils First Full Flash Player for Mobile Devices and PCs Close to 50 Open Screen Project Participants Support New Browser Runtime for Multiple Platforms

LOS ANGELES – Oct. 5, 2009 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today unveiled Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 software for smartphones, smartbooks, netbooks, PCs and other Internet-connected devices, allowing content created using the Adobe Flash Platform to reach users wherever they are. A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Public betas for Google® Android™ and Symbian® OS are expected to be available in
early 2010.

In addition, Adobe and RIM announced a joint collaboration to bring Flash Player to Blackberry® smartphones, and Google joined close to 50 other industry players in the Open Screen Project initiative.
Flash Player 10.1 is the first consistent runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and high definition (HD) videos across devices. Using the productive Web programming model of the Flash Platform, the browser-based runtime enables millions of designers and developers to reuse code and assets and reduce the cost of creating, testing and deploying content across different operating systems and browsers. Flash Player 10.1 is easily updateable across all supported platforms to ensure rapid adoption of new innovations that move the Web forward.

The browser-based runtime leverages the power of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for accelerated video and graphics while conserving battery life and minimizing resource utilization. New mobile-ready features that take advantage of native device capabilities include support for multi-touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer and screen orientation bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience. Flash Player 10.1 will also take advantage of media delivery with HTTP streaming, including integration of content protection powered by Adobe® Flash® Access 2.0. This effort, code-named Zeri, will be an open format based on industry standards and will
provide content publishers, distributors and partners the tools they need to utilise HTTP infrastructures for high-quality media delivery in Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe® AIR® 2.0 software.

“With Flash Player moving to new mobile platforms, users will be able to experience virtually all Flash technology based Web content and applications wherever they are,” said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “We are excited about the broad collaboration of close to 50 industry leaders in the Open Screen Project and the ongoing collaboration with 19 out of the top 20 handset manufacturers worldwide. It will be great to see first devices ship with full Flash Player in the first half of next year.”

“We are excited to join Adobe and other industry leaders in the Open Screen Project,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management at Google. “This initiative supports our common goal to move the Web forward as a platform and to spur innovation in the industry through technology such as Adobe Flash.”

“Adobe Flash technology provides a key experience on new Windows phones, enabling people to enjoy rich Flash based games, videos and other interactive Web content on the go,” said Stephanie Ferguson, general manager, Product Management, Microsoft Corp. “We look forward to bringing in the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 to the Windows phone browser when it becomes available.”

“Motorola is excited to be one of the first handset manufacturers to ship Android based devices with Flash Player support early next year,” said Christy Wyatt, vice president of software applications and ecosystem at Motorola. “As the No.1 platform for video on the Web, uncompromised browsing of Flash technology based content is essential for a rich mobile experience and something users expect from Motorola today.”

“As a longtime partner of Adobe, and more than 400 million Nokia phones shipped with existing Flash technology to date, we are excited to see Flash Player becoming a reality for mobile phones and other mobile devices,” said Purnima Kochikar, vice president, Forum Nokia. “Nokia is excited about full Flash Player coming to devices and we are committed to supporting Flash Player 10.1 on mobile devices in 2010.”

[Adobe]

Satio is the first Sony Ericsson handset to be based on the open platform Symbian Foundation operating system, so users can download and install new applications and content straight to their mobile handset. Looks like Sony Ericsson has cottoned on to this whole “app” concept.

What’s it got? A 12.1MP camera, touch features, Xenon flash, 3.5-inch 16:9 screen, ninth High Definition (nHD) gaming, and “mobile High Definition TV experience”. Huh?

It lands early November with an RRP of $1199.

The 3G Erdos has a 2.4-inch OLED 320 x 240 display that remains invisible under mirrored glass until you turn it on. It also has Wi-Fi, GPS, stereo Bluetooth, 8GB of internal memory, and a 5MP autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash and video recording capability.

Too bad it is still a glorified dumb phone. [Cellpassion via Luxury Launches]

Nokia will try again to tackle Apple Inc’s iPhone in the top-end of the handset market with a bet on Linux software, several industry sources told Reuters.

Top handset maker Nokia will show its first high-end phone running on Maemo, a version of Linux, next week at the annual Nokia World event in Stuttgart, Germany, the sources said

Come to think of it, it is pretty weird that the phone-sized, phone-shaped, phone-button-having N900 has until recently been consistently assumed to be a tablet, even though the prospect of a QWERTY Maemo handset has been openly discussed for well over a year now, and explicitly predicted as far back as October. There may still be a gutted tablet version, but this thing has the heart, soul and body of a smartphone—I’d say this is what Reuters is talking about when they say “Maemo handset”, even if they don’t know it.

Kicked out of the high end of Nokia’s product line, Symbian—which remember, they recently plunged nearly $US400m into—would be relegated to the dregs of Nokia’s product line, where it would presumably, eventually, wither and die. Sad!

Anyway, Maemo: It handles great on a tablet, but nobody really knows how it’ll translate to a phone. That said, the N900 is largish and has a QWERTY-shaped crutch, so expectations, so majestically shattered last month, are back on high. [Reuters]