Latest News Headlines
Top Story: Google Maps 4.0 for Symbian includes Google Buzz
Following the announcement earlier this evening of Google Buzz, the extension of GMail into social networking, Google Maps 4.0 has been released, advertised with the feature: "Post and view real-time messages & photos at places around the world". Buzz is implemented as another Layer in Google Maps' existing system. For the system to work, you'll have to click the link on the Google Buzz web site and then hope that your GMail region has been Buzz-enabled (it's being rolled out). Screenshots, video and more below. Comments welcome if you've got it working yet.
Top Story: Review: Enigma
Here on our Ovi Gaming site, Ewan takes a look at the latest incarnation of Zingmagic's Enigma, for S60 5th Edition smartphones, straight from the Ovi Store. You'll know the game as 'Mastermind', no doubt, from the board game, but this phone version adds significant extra layers of difficulty. Forget 'Brain Training', just play this each morning and you're good to go!
Top Story: Review: TouchCalc Lite
The calculator genre has been a popular one in all handheld and phone ecosystems over the years. Here I look at TouchCalc Lite, a recent addition to the genre explicitly for S60 5th Edition phones, finding that an austere interface hides an evaluation engine which is surprisingly powerful.
...and Canalys too, with touchscreen breakdown
Canalys stats are another important data point for the smartphone industry, they usually bring out something of interest. Here, in their 2009 summary, (mirroring Tomi's numbers and our analysis), they give Symbian-powered smartphones 47% world marketshare for the year, with RIM in second place on 20%. With their press release focussing on touchscreen numbers, Canalys points out that 55% of all smartphones sold in Q4, 2009 had touchscreens, with Nokia being the leading touchscreen smartphone manufacturer.
Nokia Social Network tool gets another beta release
Following up from user feedback, the team behind Nokia Messaging for Social Networks has released a second beta of the application. Improvements in the handling for both Twitter and Facebook are included, plus support for S40 based devices. You can download from the site, but caveat emptor, this is clearly a beta and will have rough edges.
AAS Insight 104 - Symbian goes open source
In All About Symbian Insight 104 (AAS Podcast 168), Rafe and Steve start with a quick look ahead to Mobile World Congress and then round up a number of small news items, including multiple firmware updates (N97 mini, X6, 5730, E52), details of a new version of the Ovi Store client, information on Greystripe and the Ovi Store and the lowdown on 1.4 million Ovi Maps downloads. In the second half of the podcast we discuss the big news that the the open sourcing (EPL) of the Symbian platform (40 million lines of code) has been completed four months ahead of schedule. You can listen to AAS Insight 104 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia X6 Firmware updated to v12
It’s been making its way around the various territories in the last few days, and now we’re happy to say that we have the updated firmware running on the Nokia X6 here at AAS (link to our review). The update to v12.0.091 can be installed (once available) either Over the Air or via the Nokia Software Updater on your PC. Even though your data should be preserved during the update, we would always recommend backing up any phone before an update is started.
IDC figures confirm SA and Tomi figures
Following on from Strategy Analytics and Tomi's stats for smartphone sales in the whole of 2009, summarised here by me last week, we now have confirmation, courtesy of the USA-based IDC, of the very latest Q4 2009 smartphone world unit sales: again, Nokia lead the market with 38% for its S60-based smartphones, while RIM's Blackberrys are in second place with 20%. Q1 2010 results will be even more interesting, expect these in the first week of April.
WebKit still receiving contributions from Nokia, Apple, Google and Rim
While you can argue about what the numbers actually mean, it’s nice to see that the main players in mobile browser are all feeding back changes to the WebKit open-source project. Alongside Nokia (and Trolltech), Apple, Google and RIM are all contributing in some form, as shown in Evan Martin's blog post to the Chromium web
Check-in to FourSquare on the side
For those of you who use FourSquare (a geo-location social network and game all rolled into one), you might be interested to know that you can check-in to the game via a third party service, Waze. Details are over on SmashPop if you’d happier using this method than SMS or the mobile website.
Shot by fans: N95 8GB, N86, 5800
What do you get when you decide to shoot a UK music video using only phones? Specifically, Nokia's N95 8GB, N86 and 5800? Well, rubbish, in the case of the third one just mentioned, but the N95 and N86 in the hands of a couple of hundred fans, shooting around the band (Noisettes), should provide something interesting, the full story is told in the brief documentary embedded below. (Even riskier, the video is being edited (all 140 hours of footage) by the fans themselves, online at shotbyfans.com, if you want to take a look there as well.)
The Nokia N97 Story: Choosing Classic or Mini?
With the release of the new (v21 or v11, depending on the device) firmware for the Nokia N97 and N97 mini, both smartphones suddenly got distinctly more appealing, running more applications at once and with their software finally becoming 'fit for purpose'. So you like the unique, patented, hybrid form factor? So do I. But the big question is: which one should you buy? In this feature I look at every single difference between the two phones, commenting where needed and.... I try to pick an overall winner.
Extended Twitter Round-Up (Ultra Plus Pro Deluxe)
David Gilson recently performed a big feature on Twitter applications on Symbian and S60. Mind you, thanks to the feedback of AAS readers, he has now expanded his survey to now cover an eye watering seventeen Twitter options for S60 users wanting to get more out Twitter. Gulp. Read on!
Review: Snaptu
Something of an oddball in the mobile world, Snaptu is a Java application that attempts to provide a cosy environment into which you can bring a plethora of online services (Flickr, Facebook, TV listings, News, etc). Ewan, as the main reviewer, wasn't too impressed by the limited functionality within each service or by the clunky Java text input. I was somewhat more positive, as you'll see from my 'PS' - but your comments welcome - are you a Snaptu fan?
YouTube for S60 gets a minor (and patchy) update...
Google's YouTube client for S60 has had very patchy availability recently. The official version on m.google.com was 2.2.17, while the version on the Ovi Store varied from 2.2.21 to 2.2.29, depending on which device you were downloading it for. Version 2.2.30 has now popped up on m.google.com for most devices. There are no feature additions that I can see and there's still no explicit N97 version on the web (though 2.2.29 is available for the N97 on the Ovi Store), but completists may want to install it anyway. Phew! Wish Google would just maintain the one version/SIS file... (via Mauku)
The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic gets the big v200 update
Thanks to Norman John for the heads-up on a big v200 firmware update to the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic. v200.12.87 is available both over the air and via NSU for unbranded phones in most parts of the world. As ever, network-branded phones may take a lot longer. Changes from the old v101 firmware include the Next-Gen version of Web and a multitude of performance tweaks.
Optimising (and rationalising) RAM on the Nokia N97
Steve Litchfield explores the world of RAM on the Nokia N97 and N97 mini, demonstrates that you can still multitask well over a dozen applications at once, discusses what Nokia got wrong and gives some pointers as to what you can do to keep things on the rails...
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Symbian Software
TIP: Check out our feature article on recommended software for some of the best commercial software available for your phone.
Avatar Theme
Enjoy the top quality Avatar Theme special design for S60 3rd edition and Nokia S60 5th Edition touchcreen phones. Great theme!GemMagic II
GemMagic is a fast paced, simple and highly addictive board game. Simply swap adjacent gems to construct lines of 3 or more pieces to score points.HomeRun II
HomeRun is a highly addictive card solitaire that combines luck with skill providing endless hours of fun and entertainment.South African girl, named Sarafina
Authentic Africa brings the video of a South African girl named SarafinaABBYY FotoTranslate Russian - German
ABBYY FotoTranslate Russian - German for Symbian translates words with a single button push, wherever you are - you don't need to type unknown foreign words by hand.RAMblow S60
RAMblow automatically manages memory to maintain a healthy amount of free RAM, for smooth operation of the phone.ABBYY FotoTranslate Italian - English
ABBYY FotoTranslate Italian - English for Symbian translates words with a single button push, wherever you are - you don't need to type unknown foreign words by hand.ABBYY FotoTranslate German - Russian
ABBYY FotoTranslate German - Russian for Symbian translates words with a single button push, wherever you are - you don't need to type unknown foreign words by hand.
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