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Top Story: How to: Get faster GPS locks - and how to stay patient when you can't
GPS, like many modern technologies, is often taken for granted. Yet it's quite a bit more fragile, in terms of operation, than you might think. Here are some facts and tips that may help your own smartphone GPS experience.
Top Story: How to fix LED flash photos
If you have ever found your LED-illuminated camera phone photos to have a strange colour tint, David Gilson has a video tutorial to show you how to get your friends and family looking more like themselves, using a generic desktop computer with the multi-platform open source editor, The GIMP.
Top Story: Review: Sony Ericsson Satio - part 3: Applications and interface
Following on from the first two Sony Ericsson Satio review parts: One: Form, Design, Build Quality and Two: The Camera, here's my third look at the new Sony Ericsson flagship, rounding up its general applications and interface. Part 4 will address its new media suite and will assess this smartphone's overall worth, with me hoping that Sony Ericsson squeeze in another firmware update before then...
The top 10 Phones from Hell
No, not that hell. Michael Hell, previously of Symbian Freak and a geek after my own heart for the last 5 years, and someone whose opinion I respect. And he's just produced an interesting Top 10 phones of 2009, split into numbers 10 to 6 and then numbers 5 to 1. And the top pick will surprise you, but it's entirely defensible.
What did Palm and WebOS do wrong in 2009, and are Nokia interested?
Two totally unrelated stories for your interest over a nice hot cup of tea... 1) A look back at Palm's 2009 on Royal Pingdom and how they failed to make the most of their early advantage with WebOS and the Palm Pre; 2) Nokia's Rick Simonson doing a non-denial denial that the Finnish company would be interested in buying Palm. We're certainly living in interesting times, and I wonder what the mobile landscape will look like in a year's time.
Shozu purchased by Critical Path, service to continue
The company behind popular social media application Shozu, which allows you to upload images, videos and content to your network of social media sites (such as Flickr and Facebook), has been purchased by Critical Path. Existing users have been reassured the service will continue to run, and the service appears to be a good fit with Critical Path's white labelling of message solutions to clients.
The Symbian Foundation on 2010
Published on Christmas Eve by Symbian Foundation Executive Director Lee Williams, there's an interesting article here detailing his thoughts on Symbian's role in the industry in 2010 and beyond. I've also quoted a few paragraphs below, with comment.
The Nokia X6 unboxed and pecked apart
Whenever Ewan mentions that he's 'unboxing' something, we trust him to produce something that's "different". In this case it's the new capacitive-screened, music-focussed Nokia X6 smartphone which gets the treatment in a special video, embedded below. And it seems that a few mm of plastic on the X6's side has really gotten Ewan's goat. More from him on the X6 in due course.
Microrace perfectly formed but limited
Over on our Ovi Gaming site, Ewan's burnt off a few Christmas mince pies in Microrace, which takes a traditional, top down view of the arcade karting genre - he thinks that's just enough for a great game, but is Microrace a touch too small? Here's the review - can the game break free from being a 'proof of concept'?
2010 on your phone
Just in case you're huddling at home, in front of AAS or your RSS feed rather than being out at some party this New Year's Eve, you might like to see in the New Year with this crafted '2010' theme from master designer PiZero. Get it installed before the big moment for maximum effect!
Nokia Messaging to Google MfE Syncing
The prolific Guru, Ricky Cadden, has done an interesting piece here, part rant, part tutorial, documenting his frustrations with Nokia Messaging and his switch to Email/Contacts/Calendar syncing direct to Google services. It's a little bit geeky, to be sure, but you just know you're interested in how it all works...
The Symbian Phone of the Decade
I asked an eclectic selection of 20 luminaries, bloggers and power users from the Symbian ecosystem: "Which is the Symbian-powered smartphone of the Decade? Which one was most significant, the most memorable, the most game-changing and the most loved?" Here are their answers, for your interest and amusement - and yes, a clear winner emerged...
And the phone of the year is....
You can usually trust James Whatley to have his head screwed on more or less straight when it comes to assessing the merits of various phones and smartphones - I suspect even more go through his hands than through mine.... Anyway, he's written up his judging process for The Really Mobile Project 'Phone of the year' and.... I think you'll be surprised. And then you'll go "Well, yes, I see his point". Interesting stuff, though my phone of the year is the less mass market Nokia N97 mini - it's just a shame this came in so late in 2009...
Nokia launch second patent action against Apple
Following on their action in October, Nokia have asked the US International Trade Commission to investigate Apple, alleging that '[they infringe] Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers'. The patents in question cover the areas of user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies. Read on for more.
Review: eReader
Ewan snuggles up in his favourite chair by the Christmas tree, with a selection of novels on his S60 5th Edition smartphone, courtesy of the brand new eReader application (and ecosystem). Apart from the use of a restrictive ebook format, there's very little to complain about, it seems, and Ewan has no problem recommending that you give the free eReader a try.
"Explosion of data" caused O2's poor network quality in 2009
Something we're likely to hear more of in 2010 is the 'damage' that mobile phone users who make use of the always on promise of mobile data cause on the coverage and quality of a network. Head of O2 Robin Dunne said as much in this interview on the FT. While he points ot the "unlimited" data on the iPhone (during much of 2009 O2 had the UK exclusive on this handset) with more awareness of data connectivity, expect more problems in the New Year.
CES' Mobile App Showdown is looking for your vote
As part of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in two weeks time, 20 mobile apps have been selected to compete in the Mobile App Showdown. Perennial Symbian favourite Gravity (here's the AAS Review of the Twitter client) is currently running fifth in the public vote, which continues until Friday 8th January.
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